


the sandbox (or: westruun elementary)

by freecastle



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anna Ripley - Freeform, Anxiety Attacks, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Author Takes A Wild Stab at Elementary School Lesson Plans, Autistic Character, Celestial is Latin, Child Abuse, Elementary School, Elvish is French, Emotional Abuse, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Foster Care, Gen, Homesickness, Human AU, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kid Fic, Learning Disabilities, Modern AU, Shameless Description of Video Games I've Never Actually Played, Sign Language, can't believe i'm actually uploading this but here i m'fuckin go, in reference to Syldor as well as Grog's family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2020-08-10 13:28:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 49,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20136196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freecastle/pseuds/freecastle
Summary: The twins come to live with their father in Westruun - new town, new school, new strange kids in their class that might, with time, become their friends after all.





	1. pt. I: intro. chapter 1 - vex

**Author's Note:**

> So here's the situation: I'm 1 depressed bastard with four university deadlines looming over my head that are slowly but surely driving me to insanity. Writing this story has been a sort of outlet that has worked surprisingly well because I don't apply my usual standards to it. It's a total sandbox project; I'm just throwing some things in and putting words around them. Most of this isn't even proofread. My only goal is to Actually Do Some Writing For Once and ideally also Make My Lizard Brain Go "Aight, Nice". My girlfriend told me it's a-okay to still upload this for both validation and possible humouring of others, and they're usually right about these things, so here I gooo
> 
> tldr: here u go pals, hope u like it, feedback and validation would be gr8

Syldor drops them off at the front gate, surprisingly enough.

Vex climbs out of the black SUV first, because her brother needs a few more seconds to finish his aggressive sulking, and straightens her skirt before getting both of their backpacks from the trunk of the car. Her nerves are humming, buzzing, vibrating underneath her skin. She takes a deep breath, pinches the skin on her wrist.

"You have _no_ idea what you’re talking about-"

"Vax’ildan, you have to get a hold of yourself right-"

"Screw you!"

The door slams shut, the tires screech, and Vex holds her breath so she doesn’t inhale the exhaust fumes. When the car speeds away, Vax is pacing up and down, an absolutely furious expression on his face.

"You had to scream at him right on the first day?", Vex asks, but she steps forward towards her brother as she says it. "He’s gonna be really mad when we get back, now."

"Let him be mad, I don’t care", Vax replies sharply. "He doesn’t even care about us, he’s just afraid we’ll embarrass him."

Vex shrugs and holds out her hand. "Let’s go. I don’t wanna be late."

Her brother rolls his eyes, but takes her hand as he shrugs on his backpack over one shoulder. "You’re _so_ nervous."

"Am not."

"Are too."

"D’you think he put us in different electives?"

Vax doesn’t reply, but Vex feels his grip tighten around her hand.

They haven’t been separated from each other for prolonged amounts of time since… ever, really. They’ve been in this town for about a week, and their father kept them in the house for the most part during that time, which means that Vax doesn’t yet know the secret passages and hiding places around the new school. The school, too, is bigger than they’re used to— Byroden Elementary had been a converted bar. She knows Vax is on edge, has been since they waved goodbye to their mother.

Maybe she is nervous.

Vex glances around the schoolyard as they enter. Kids are already running around, playing tag, or climbing on the wooden jungle gym. Everything is spotted with colours of sweaters, hats, coats. A banner over the main doors — it’s a portal, really — reads "WELCOME BACK TO WESTRUUN ELEMENTARY!", complete with jolly font, little smiley faces, and confetti painted on it.

"They have a big gym over there", Vax says quietly, indicating to the right with a tilt of his head. "And behind that there’s a little forest that-"

"How do you know?" He doesn’t answer. Vex nudges him with her elbow, frowning. "Did you sneak in yesterday?" Still no answer. "That’s why I had to distract Dad?!"

"Stop calling him dad, it sounds weird."

"Well, he is!" Vex huffs, then forces her shoulders to drop. "Just don’t get caught. And… that’s nice about the forest." She pulls a face at her brother, who smirks. "Thanks, scrawny."

He squeezes her hand as they keep walking towards the double doors.

"D’you think we can get in yet?", Vex asks, and her brother begins to answer, but before he can get a word out, something slams into Vex with full force.

She’s been described by her mom’s elderly neighbor as "a mere reed of a girl!", and the truth of the statement rings true once again as she goes flying. She manages to catch herself on her hands and knees, barely keeping her head from hitting the ground. Even as she lands, she knows she’s bleeding.

"Ooh- sorry, sorry! Oof-" The roughly accented voice breaks off suddenly, and Vex turns to see her impending sense of doom verified.

There’s another person on the ground next to her now, a large boy with short cropped black hair, easily a head and a half taller than her. Vax is raising his fists angrily, but before Vex can even shout at him to stop, a blur of yellow hits him in the stomach and sends him flying backwards as well.

"What are you-", Vex begins, at the same time as the tall boy starts saying "'m real sorry, I din’t look where I was goin', and Pike was almos' at the goalpost, so-"

"Oh man, I’m sorry!", a fourth voice chimes in that Vex realises comes from the blur of yellow which she now realises is a girl. "Didn’t mean to do that, really, but I just had to keep him from hittin’ you!"

"_Him_ from hitting _me_\- did you see that he knocked over my sister?!", Vax groans, clutching his stomach.

"You two are siblings? That’s so neat!" The girl looks back and forth from him and Vex, smiling widely. "I don’t have any siblings, but I think Grog is secretly my brother and they just never told us."

"Excuse me, what’s going on around here?"

Vex looks up, squinting against the sun, and sees an adult with a reddish-brown ponytail glaring down at them somewhat sternly. His hands are folded behind his back, and he is wearing something that she thinks could be a fancy suit if it was less obviously dusty. But before she can think of something to say, the girl speaks up again.

"Nope, Mr Noja, sir! We’re all good", she says with a grin.

"Then why’re you all sitting on the ground? Oh my- and this child is bleeding."

Vex puts her hands over her knees. "I’m sorry."

"She and Grog fell down, but right now we’re just sitting down 'cause it’s nice."

The man — a teacher, Vex assumes by now — hesitates, then gives a thin smile. "Well, I’m sure you’re right. You, bleeding child- I don’t believe I know you. What’s your name?"

Vex squints upwards again. "Vex’ahlia Vessar, sir", she answers.

Mr Noja’s face brightens. "Ah! The transfer students. Then that would make you…", he turns to Vax, "Vax’ildar, no?"

"Vax’ildan", he answers, brusquely.

"Yes, that’s right. Well, welcome to both of you, and…" He gestures towards Vex’s knees. "See the nurse before class, will you?"

"Yes, sir." She nods and tries to smile despite the burning in her knees.

He wanders off, and Vex looks over the girl, who is still smiling. Now she gets a closer look at the girl; she’s small, would probably barely come up to her shoulders if they were standing. It was her sweater that made the blur as she rushed past before, a yellow atrocity with an orange sun embroidered on the front. Her black hair is in a long, messy ponytail. Her jeans are ripped at the knees, but Vex doesn’t see blood, so she assumes it’s not recent.

"You lied."

The girl focuses her bright blue eyes on Vex. "Excuse me?"

"You lied about why I was bleeding, and what happened."

"I _omitted_ a _key detail_", she clarifies. "That’s different. And Grog didn’t mean to do it!"

"No, I really didn’t", the tall boy says apologetically.

"Your name is Grog?", Vax asks suddenly. "Really?"

"Well actually-", the girl begins, but she is immediately interrupted by Grog.

"Yah, yah", he says, nodding frantically. "It’s Grog. And, yeah- sorry for your knees."

"He has trouble keeping his strength in check", the girl says, nodding wisely. "I’m Pike, by the way, and you both have _really_ long names that Grog won’t remember, so why don’t we just make 'em shorter?"

Vax says "No" at the same time that Vex says "Vex and Vax is fine."


	2. chapter 2 - pike

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pike is a sunshine and so's her grandad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ayyy i almost made it through exam phase, just one thing left to go till i can be human again 🎉 also comments still make my heart s i n g
> 
> content note: anxiety attacks

Pike had seen the way the new boy’s face had twisted into a mask of rage the second that Grog slammed into the girl. So really, to just keep running and smash herself into his vague stomach region had been instinct.

He’s bony, the boy, way more wiry and twisty-feeling than Grog is when she play-fights him, and he hits the ground like he knows how to do it efficiently. For a second, she’s scared he’ll start hitting her instead, but the shock of the punch seems to have subdued him for the moment.

She discovers that the two are siblings — twins, in fact. While Grog apologizes to the girl he knocked over, Pike sees Mr Noja draw near from the corner of her eye, so she puts on her brightest, bestest grin, and gets him to back off, because no one needs trouble on the first day of school. Grog makes big round eyes at her and bites his lip so he doesn’t interrupt her lie.

Now she leans back onto her hands, smiling widely at the twins. "So, Vex, do you want me to show you the nurse’s office?"

Vex — at least she’s pretty sure that the girl is the one called Vex — eyes her brother for a second, her brow arched. When he gives a reluctand nod, she looks back to Pike. "Sure, that sounds good."

"Nice! Hey, which form are you two in?"

Vax makes a face. "Fourth grade, but no idea what form."

"The teacher’s called Miss Why-Soar-Win, or something", Vex adds.

Pike beams; Grog looks alarmed. "Miss Vysoren! That’s our form! That’s so cool, Grog, then you can take Vax to the classroom and I’ll just be right there."

"You sure?", Grog asks, and his voice makes that arc upwards at the end that means he’s worried.

"Yeah! You two’ll get along, won’t you, Vax?" She looks over to the dark-haired boy and grins wide, all teeth.

He averts his gaze before she does. "Sure."

"Awesome! Come on, Vex." Pike gets to her feet, dusts off her pants, then stretches out a hand towards Vex to help her up, which she takes. "You can meet my grandad.“

Vex throws a few insecure glances over her shoulder as Pike pulls her towards the door. The girl is taller than her, but thin, and barely manages to put up resistance as she’s tugged along. Her skirt is really lovely, Pike notes — a green skirt that ends just above her knees. Her tights are torn at the knees, now, showing her skin all scuffed up and bleeding.

"You didn’t even cry", Pike says, a hint of admiration in her voice.

"It wouldn’t help, now would it?"

"I know it doesn’t, I know, but still!" She wrenches the front door open and steps into the high-ceilinged entry hall.

Vex stops in her tracks behind her, which Pike only notices when the door falls shut again. "Whoah", she hears her breathe.

Pike turns around and saunters back to Vex’ side. "Yeah, I know. It’s pretty big when you first see it."

She knows the halls of Westruun Elementary can be intimidating at first glance; so early in the morning, the light grey curtains are still drawn over the large front windows, obfuscating the sunlight into a mere vague shimmer that translates into the hall. The front hall is a large and empty space with high ceilings; there’s two stairways that lead off to the left and right as well as two doors in the wall directly opposite the front door.

That wall, as well, holds large pin boards mounted between the doors, rendering the entire wall a large announcement board. At the beginning of the school year, the boards are largely empty apart from a large plan of the school, but Pike knows it’ll hold drawings soon, and pictures of school teams, group photos from the electives. Last year, there was even a newspaper article about Scanlan at one of his performances hanging there.

Pike starts talking merrily about all this as Vex continues to stare. "And yeah, I know it’s a lot, but it’s really a nice place! Most of us are here on lottery, I don’t know if you are, too — I mean, it’s not my business, anyways. The classrooms for the first, second and third grades are up there—", she points to the stairway on the left, "and fourth, fifth, sixth are the other way", she points up right. "So that’s where we’ll be! The library’s right in the middle, basically right above us right now. And you’ve seen the gym, that’s the other building…"

Vex doesn’t interrupt her, which is surprising. People often interrupt her when she talks this much. She looks at the dark-haired girl; she’s maybe even paler than before, and still looking around wide eyed.

Pike stops talking, letting a few beats of silence enter the conversation. "Are you okay?", she asks gently, then. Vex turns to her, stares at her. Pike notices her shoulders moving more quickly than they should.

Pike makes a decision, then, and attempts to put an air of finality into her voice as she tells Vex, "okay, I’m gonna take you to my grandad." She tries to take Vex by the hand, but the girl jerks away, so she only manages to catch her arm. She feels a little bad, but she does need Vex to move, so she just whispers "sorry" and continues.

As carefully as she can, Pike pulls her along to the left door on the wall opposite the front portal. There’s a laminated sign pinned to it: a hand-made child’s drawing of an angel, smiling widely, eyes serenely closed, in a blue-and-pink dress. Her arms are stretched out, and she has a halo of short-cropped blond hair spread around her head. From a pin below, there hangs another sign that says "Come On In!" in large bubbly letters.

Pike knocks for politeness’ sake, but she bursts in immediately after; the bubbly sign means her grandad’s not currently looking after anyone who needs privacy. "Hey, Granpa?", she calls out. "Are you here yet?"

At her side, Vex lets out a gasp, then another, slightly longer one. "It’s- it’s okay", she says breathlessly. "I didn’t mean to make a fuss—"

"Pike?", a croaky voice calls from a back room that Pike knows is her grandad’s office. There’s a shuffle of papers, the creak of a chair being pushed back, and then her Granpa Wilhand is bustling around the corner. His already large brown eyes widen and the corners of his mouth turn upwards into a big grin. "Well, I didn’t think you’d come visit so soon! Who’s this?"

"This is—"

"My name’s Vex’ahlia Vessar, Sir", Vex interrupts, somewhat breathlessly still. At a glance, Pike notices that she’s stood up straighter. "I’m sorry for interrupting, but I was told —"

"Nonsense, nonsense!" Wilhand tilts his head curiously and discreetly gestures for Pike to stand off to the side as he comes closer. "Vex’ahlia, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I see you have some scratches on your knees, do you want to sit down?" The girl nods numbly, as he ushers her over not to the cushioned gurney, but to a group of chairs by the window that looks out over the shadowed portion of the school gardens.

"You look a little pale, Vex’ahlia. Pike, why don’t you get your friend a glass of water from the office? There’s a good girl." Pike nods and goes to fetch water from the office. She knows this tone from her grandad; he uses it when someone is stressed, or when Keyleth from her class loses her words, or even when she can’t calm down from really bad nightmares. He’s taking care of Vex’ahlia, now, and he needs her to help.

When she gets back from the office, Wilhand is dabbing at Vex’ knee with a wet rag. "Now, that should be all of it… didn’t really get much dirt in it, I commend you, young lady. Wonderful. I’m gonna put this spray on it, it might burn a little, but then we’ll be right finished…"

Pike puts the glass of water on the chair next to Vex, then steps back and takes the time to look around the room. Her grandfather tends to clean up the space in between school years, but it’s still cluttered; there’s a couch over on one side of the room with pillows and a blanket strewn over it, the first-aid kit with band-aids and other knick-knacks already open on the scuffed-up coffee table. The only truly tidy area is a two-meter radius around the gurney; the cabinet that holds the rarely-needed pieces of equipment is firmly locked and bolted to the wall right next to it. The door to the right leads off to a small office with a desk, another couch, and a wide bookcase.

She does like it here, as much as she’s heard her friends complain about a "medicine-ish smell" about the place. It feels all warm and homey; it feels safe, and not just because the clutter reminds her of the flat they live in. Pike flops down on the big couch and stretches her arms over her head with a smile.

"There we go." Wilhand pats the band-aid that now decorates Vex’ knee. "I do apologize that it’s so plain, but the funny ones were all too small for that knee of yours." He stops for a moment, then brightens. "I could put a funny one on top of the plain one?"

Vex smiles, for the first time since Pike first saw her. It’s a shy, but bright thing, her smile. "You don’t — you don’t have to…"

"Nonsense! Pike, which ones did we buy again?"

Pike leans forward, kicking her feet. "We got dinosaurs, we got little puppies, we got princesses, and we got cats. And I put the ones with the suns on it in the cart when you weren’t looking."

"Ah, I suppose you did. Which one would you like, Vex’ahlia?"

She hesitates. "I— can I have one with dogs?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not a native English speaker, so if I made any mistakes in that regard, feel free to point them out. Hope you enjoy!


	3. chapter 3 - vax

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter a few more folks from campaign 1.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me watching the hits and kudos for this fic nearly double after the second chapter: boi howdy  


The classroom that Grog leads him to is spacious and bright with high ceilings and a windowfront that looks out over a garden, and Vax sticks his chin out and does not like it at all.

"So that’s the bookshelves", Grog says awkwardly and points to the back wall of the classroom. "That’s… that’s the windows. And that’s where the teacher sits."

Vax looks around the room slowly, taking it in. In front of the blackboard mounted to the wall, there are four rows of four single-person desks lined up; there’s another, larger desk in the far corner of the room. Two steps lead up to a podium that holds the desk and the blackboard. The floor under the tables is linoleum, covered with a colourful patchwork carpet rug with frazzles at the sides.

"Are the seats assigned?", he asks.

"Not right now, they’re not." Grog looks around, a sense of satisfaction on his face. "But if you’re too loud, teachers’ll put you in another seat."

"Sure…", Vax murmurs. He considers the desks. If it were up to him, he’d just sit in the back row and call it a day. Being a back row kid is the safe option. Vex doesn’t like the last row, though; if he sits there, she’ll be all torn and disappointed in him.

In the time that he’s considering, Grog trots over to a desk in the third row and flops down into it; the second best option, after the back row. Vax pulls a face behind his back, then starts towards the second row. He drops his backpack next to the desk that’s closest to the windowfront, then shrugs off his jacket and spreads it completely over the desk next to it.

Vax takes a deep breath and smoothes out the folds in the jacket. He walks back to the bookshelves; one is entirely filled with board games, another with actual books, among them the entire Harry Potter series, several children’s encyclopedias, a few books on gardening, some dictionaries in various languages, and a thoroughly confusing amount of weathered construction manuals off to one side. A different shelf holds several boxes of toys, and another is almost entirely empty. Vax is not sure he understands the distribution of things in this room.

Grog starts whistling merrily in his seat.

Vax glances over at the clock that is mounted over the door; it’s two minutes to eight. He sends another quick look over at Grog, but the boy is just stretched out in his seat, looking off into the air.

He quietly walks over to the teacher’s desk, stepping up to the podium. It’s fairly empty; there’s a plant standing at its corner, a small cup holding a multitude of pens and pencils, and a picture frame. He leans forward to look at the picture; it shows a woman with long blond hair. She’s laughing. She has her arm flung over the shoulder of a shorter woman with short brown hair that curls out wildly in all directions. The brown-haired woman is smirking as well, looking right into the camera. They’re standing in front of a house; it has a garden in front, and a cherry tree.

"What’re you doing?", Grog’s voice sounds from behind him, somewhat anxiously.

Vax twitches. "Shshshshsh. Just looking around."

"I don’t think you’re s’posed to…"

"What, 're you scared?" Vax doesn’t turn around, just continues to look.

There’s another bookcase behind the desk, with words on the backs of them that he doesn’t know; and some of those languages definitely aren’t English, and not identifiable by the chunks of French he knows. He glances over to the clock again; one minute to eight. Vax steps gingerly around the desk and regards the desk drawers. They’re all closed. He kneels down to pull at one—

—and nearly jumps out of his skin as the bell rings. In an instinctual scramble to get away, he knocks his shin against the hard wood, curses, and is back in his seat in less than two seconds.

Grog looks delighted. "That was a _really bad word_."

Vax snorts. "Well, I’m ever so sorry!"

Grog chortles joyfully. Vax brushes his long hair out of his face, grimaces and mouths, quietly to himself, "Sorry, Mum".

The door bursts open, and a chorus of voices enters the room. Vax immediately slouches down deeper into his seat, putting the door on his periphery so he can watch who’s entering without it being obvious.

Kids begin to filter in and take their seats, chatting with each other. A stout brown-haired boy drops into the seat next to Grog with a half-yelled "Grog-maaaan!", which Grog replies to with "SCANLAN!", the two of them excitedly beginning to talk about nothing. Vax tunes them out best he can and continues to catalogue the people around him.

The rest of the class slowly grows full; a kid with dusty blond hair walks over to the chair by Vax, but he fixes them with his darkest stare, and they retreat with raised eyebrows. He returns to staring at his desk, slightly regretful.

There’s two more people that catch his eye in particular. One is an extremely pale boy with thin wire glasses who looks almost too young to be in this class. He’s thin with a tuft of neatly brushed white hair, and he doesn’t speak to anyone; he simply heads straight towards a desk in the first row, diagonal to Vax, sits down, takes a small pencilcase out of his blue backpack, and straightens his back. He doesn’t look around.

The other is a red-headed girl that walks in alone. She smiles brightly at Grog, Scanlan, and the stiff brown-haired boy, rushing to greet Grog with a quick hug. She whispers something to him, to which Grog replies "No, no, she’s gettin’ the new girl to the nurse is all, don’t worry."

Vax doesn’t turn around, so he only sees the girl step back to the front and take a seat in front of him. He notices with some amusement when she turns to greet the white-haired boy, she has a sort of flower crown on her head, clearly handmade from daisies and dandelions, small sticks woven in as well. The girl immediately draws up her knees, somehow folding her entire body into the small desk chair.

"All right, everyone!" The grown-up voice makes Vax sit up straighter before he can help himself. Keyleth grins at him once more, then turns back around. "I do apologize for being late, but don’t you guys get used to it."

Vax recognises the woman who steps in front of the class from the photo: long blond hair in two loose braids over the shoulders, large blue-rimmed glasses, grey eyes that now scan the room. He sinks back down into his seat, digs his fingertips into his thighs until it’s slightly painful, and wishes that Vex were back already.

The woman slips a brown leather bag off her shoulder and onto the teacher’s desk, then claps her hands. "Right! Most of you guys know me already, but I’ll still introduce myself — I know it’s easy to forget things over the holidays. Hey, Wren, you still owe me a homework assignment." She points over to the dusty-blond kid who’s now sitting to the other side of the seat Vax is saving for his sister; they grin apologetically.

"My name’s Miss Vysoren, and I’ll be teaching you some things this year." She turns around, grabs a piece of chalk from below the blackboard, and writes her name in large, swooping letters. "Beyond the usual, I’m in charge of the Spanish and French electives this year, so Scanlan", she points behind Vax; he turns and sees Grog’s friend smirk, "you’re not getting away with minimum effort again." A few voices in the room chuckle quietly.

"I do believe we have some transfers this year…" Miss Vysoren looks around, settling her gaze on Vax. "And that would probably be you. Vax’ildan, is it?"

He nods mutely.

She frowns. "I was under the impression you had a sister, was that wrong?"

"I _have_ a sister", Vax replies, somewhat harshly. "She-"

The door bursts open. "Sorry! Sorry we’re late, we were at grandpa’s, we needed bandaids!"

Vax almost collapses in his seat with relief when he sees Vex enter the room. The small girl in the yellow sweater is in front of her, gesturing wildly with her explanation. "The office wasn’t ready, so we had to look for some stuff as well—"

Miss Vysoren holds out a hand. "All good, Pike, you go sit down. I assume you’re Vex’ahlia?"

"Yes, ma’am, I’m sorry", Vex replies. Vax resists the urge to roll his eyes as she folds her hands behind her back.

"No problem. Pike couldn’t lie to save her life, so I know you’re fine." Grog and Scanlan both bellow a laugh at that; Pike blushes slightly and scuffles off to the seat besides Grog with a smile. Miss Vysoren smirks. "Welcome to Westruun Elementary, both of you. I have your schedules here, and we can go over them later to see if you have any questions."

Vex breathes out and nods. "Thank you very much."

"I do believe your brother saved you a seat, Vex’ahlia." Miss Vysoren gestures over to the seat next to Vax, which he now scrambles to remove his jacket from.

Vex catches his eyes, and her shoulders relax ever so slightly. She nods again. "Thank you, ma’am."

As she sits down, Vax pretends to still be fumbling with his jacket, so Vex can put her hand in his for just a second. They squeeze each other’s fingers so tight they’d wince if it wasn’t each other they were holding. Vex smiles ever-so-slightly at him, all nervousness and a hint of excitement, and Vax exhales.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not a native English speaker, so if I made any mistakes in that regard, feel free to point them out. Hope you enjoy!


	4. chapter 4 - vex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We meet some classmates. The twins cope, in their ways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i made some tweaks to the structure of this thing, it's now got pt. I and, at a later point, II and stuff, truly incredible. i've got things written up to chapter 9 currently, and definitely going on further. in other news, i'm done with exams!!! hallelujah!!!

Vex spends the lesson half trying to pay attention to Miss Vysoren and half jotting down the names of her classmates.

The girl in front of her with the red hair and the flower crown is called _Kee-leth_, the name of the white-haired boy to Keyleth’s right is Percival. Pike and Grog are sitting directly behind her and Vax. There’s a girl called Lyra with large wire-rimmed glasses, who perpetually looks a little nervous and drops her pen three times in the space of a half hour, and a brown-haired girl named Ilya with her hair in a complex braid, both in the front row.

Apart from that, she learns that this school has a library; it also has a garden, an auditorium, and the gym that Vax told her about. Vex slowly begins to understand why their father enrolled them here, despite all his pride and his announcements of private tutoring.

Miss Vysoren mentions an afternoon program where you can stay in school to get your homework done, but you need a permission slip. Vex wonders if she’ll be able to convince Syldor to sign the permission slip, and then maybe she and Vax can steal away and explore.

She already misses the forest around Byroden. She misses the river that curves through it. She misses the smell of the earthen ground after a rain.

Syldor didn’t tell them much about why he took them here, not back to Syngorn, the city their mother tried to make her and Vax feel excited for. A diplomatic assignment, he’d said during the drive to Westruun. The house — _their_ house — had seemed permanent enough, for all its decorations and the manicured garden. Vex has only seen so much of the town and the house’s surroundings, but it felt…

It’s difficult to put words to it.

She misses home.

With some effort, Vex tunes back in to what Miss Vysoren and the other people in class are saying. She learns a few more names; the kid next to Grog, a tiny dark-haired boy with a voice twice the size of himself, is called Scanlan. Everything he says is a joke, and immediately followed by a chuckle on Grog’s part. There’s a girl sitting behind Pike who, best she can tell, actually has her hair _dyed _a violent shade of red, and her name is Zahra. She smirks at Vex when she catches her looking, and Vex turns back forward quickly, warmth rushing to her face.

About an hour into class, Miss Vysoren finishes answering questions about organisational matters. She lets silence hang in the air for a while before she claps her hands once. "Great. If you have any other questions, you guys know where to find me. I wanna talk to a couple of you outside, and the rest of you can chat till the bell, alright?" She grins as the room immediately erupts into voices.

Vex breathes out slowly and looks over to Vax. He meets her gaze half-way and gives a half-hearted grin before swivelling in his chair towards her.

"Could be worse, huh?", he says quietly. Vex shrugs helplessly. "Come on, 'ts better than old Hennis correcting our grammar and making us do long division."

"The long division might be coming later, to be fair."

Vax chuckles, then immediately twitches violently as knuckles rap on his desk. Vex looks up to see Miss Vysoren by their desks, a wry smile on her face.

"Sorry to interrupt, but I was thinking we might talk about your schedules out in the hall."

Vex stands up quickly; Vax is slower to get to his feet, somewhat slouching along behind her as they follow Miss Vysoren out of the room. The woman turns around and leans on the windowsill, waiting for Vax to close the door behind him. Vex finds herself tugging at her braid, and she folds her hands in front of her so that she’ll stop.

"I know the school can seem overwhelming when you first arrive, I hope you’ve been doing alright on that front."

"Yes, ma’am", Vex says automatically, before wincing at her own formality a second later. She hastily adds, "Pike started showing me around earlier."

Miss Vysoren smiles. "She’s a sweet girl. If you need anything, you can talk to her, as well."

"You said you had our schedules", Vax says, abruptly.

Vex and Miss Vysoren frown at him in tandem, Vex somewhat more severely. "Certainly", Miss Vysoren says, hesitating before handing each of them a laminated sheet of paper.

Vex scans hers; it’s got time slots and the days of the week, each part of the resulting chart neatly filled out with subjects and what she assumes to be teacher’s names. Some of the subjects have a bold-printed E in front of them. Each school day seems to end at the same time — four in the afternoon. For a second, she imagines spending eight hours, back to back, every day, in a concrete building, and she feels vaguely sick before she bans the thought from her mind.

"You both got the electives you asked for, so —"

"Which ones were that?", Vax asks quietly, studying his schedule.

Miss Vysoren tilts her head. "I said you got the ones you chose."

Vax glances up from the paper, and Vex feels a jolt of pain through her chest just being at the edge of his glare. "I forgot."

Miss Vysoren looks at him for several seconds, curious, before she responds. "You’re both in French class… Vax’ildan, you’re in Athletics, and Vex’ahlia, you’re in Nature."

Before she can stop herself, Vex blurts out, "_what?_"

Her voice echoes slightly through the corridor, louder than she intended. Miss Vysoren raises her eyebrows. "Would you like to transfer?"

"No!" Her heart is beating faster than usual. Vax steps slowly into her space, leans his shoulder against hers, still studying his schedule like he thinks the words on it matter. Vex breathes; she gets a hold of herself. "No, ma’am", she repeats.

"You two moved here with your father, didn’t you?"

Vex tightens her grip around the laminated paper in her hands. "Yes, ma’am."

"How long have you been in Westruun?"

"We arrived a week ago", Vax replies before Vex can force herself to form words. "Our father wanted us to start school… in an ex-pe-di-tious fashion."

Miss Vysoren nods slowly. "Maybe this isn’t a hallway conversation, but… I’m sure it’s not easy to leave your home and start new somewhere else entirely. If either of you wishes to talk to someone, you can always—"

"Come to you or go to Mr Trickfoot’s office, down the stairs, through the door with the angel on it", Vax says, his tone scathing. Vex instinctively jams her elbow into his ribs, and he steps away from her with a glare. "We heard the introduction speech, thank you kindly."

Miss Vysoren’s eyes harden. "I realize that you’re in a stressful situation, but I don’t appreciate the tone, Vax’ildan."

"I’ll try to contain my regrets", Vax spits back.

Her voice gets marginally louder. "Do you really want to set this kind of mood for the school year?"

Vex’ hand shoots out and grabs her brother by the wrist, hard enough to hurt, and she pulls sharply. "_Vax_", she says under her breath. He looks at her, and the anger in his eyes is burning. She doesn’t have a clue what to tell him, because she _knows_ him, knows her twin, and she understands, so all she says is, "stop."

Vax holds her gaze for a second before he drops the tension in his body and looks down to the floor. "Sorry, ma’am", he says, quietly between his teeth.

Miss Vysoren still looks stern, but she seems to relax a little. "I accept your apology, but if you behave like this again, I will have to notify your father. Understood?"

Vex squeezes her brother’s hand again as he mutters his assent.

"Alright." Miss Vysoren nods. "Vax’ildan, maybe it would be good for you to get some fresh air. You can go outside for the rest of class if you want, the others will be right out for their break."

Vax hesitates, looks at Vex. Then he nods his head, quickly. "Thanks." Vex squeezes his hand once more, giving him a look that says _don’t do anything stupid. _Vax tilts his head and gives her a look back that says, _oh_ _please._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for any comments that've been left here, they've really made my day!
> 
> I'm not a native English speaker, so if I've made any mistakes in that regard, feel free to point them out. Hope you enjoy!


	5. chapter 5 - keyleth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keyleth worries, with all the meeting new people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love keyleth so much you guys. and you will pry autistic keyleth from my cold cold hands  
also, if you're wondering, yes i did spend three hours googling "garden ideas for kids" in prep for this chapter

The very millisecond that Miss Vysoren finishes her sentence, Keyleth is out of her seat and rushing over to Pike to hug her.

"Keyleth!", Pike says gleefully into her shoulder as Keyleth wraps her arms around her as tight as she can. "Oh man, I missed you! Sorry I wasn’t here to say hi earlier, I had to take Vex to Granpa Wilhand—"

Keyleth lets go of Pike, feeling like her smile is going to split her face in half. Her hands are flapping up and down rapidly.

Pike’s mouth forms an O. "Where did you get that flower crown?!"

Keyleth breathes in deliberately. "Dad-showed-me-how", she breathes out in a rush. Words are difficult today, as they tend to be after the holiday, but everything about words gets a little easier when Pike is around.

"That’s ah-mazing, you have to teach me later."

Keyleth nods enthusiastically, and Pike puts her pencilcase into her backpack so Keyleth can sit on the desk, knees tucked to her chest, hand in Pike’s.

"Oi, Key." Scanlan leans over from his seat. "Did you meet the new guys yet?" She shakes her head, and he smirks. "Well, Grog got in a fight with the girl already."

"That— 'ey!" Grog bristles. "That’s no' true at all!"

"Scanlan!", Pike scolds. "He accidentally ran into her in the yard, is all."

Keyleth looks around for the two new kids, but they’re not in the room anymore; she supposes that Miss Vysoren took them outside to talk. "Did she get hurt?", she asks.

Pike squeezes her hand encouragingly before replying. "She got her knees bloody, it was pretty gross. But Grandad gave her band-aids and now she’s all better, I think."

"What’re their names again?", Scanlan asks with a frown. Keyleth suppresses a snort. He always gets grumpy when Pike tells him off. Granted, so does pretty much everyone, but Percy told her that it was special with Scanlan 'cause he had a _crush_ on Pike. She’s fairly sure no one else knows.

"One’s called Vex and one’s called Vax", Grog replies. "Don’ know who’s who, though. You know", he looks very smug all of a sudden, "it’s like that with twins."

"I think the boy’s the one who’s Vax", Pike says, stretching the vowel.

Keyleth slowly rocks herself back and forth as she listens to the conversation. Sometimes, it helps her to just _listen —_ there’s stuff she misses when she’s on her own, she knows, and her friends are usually better at new people in general. A quiet flutter ghosts through her stomach.

New things are weird. This room is new; after third grade, the main classroom is changed for every class. Miss Vysoren is not new, and she knows that’s unusual, because the main teacher is also supposed to change after third grade, but she’s happy that it hasn’t happened. New _people _are… a lot.

"Keyleth, did you think they looked nice?" Grog’s voice jolts her out of her head. She looks up with wide eyes, and Grog repeats, "the new kids. D’you think they look nice?"

"_I _think Vex is lovely, at least", Pike says with certainty. "Vax seems a little weird and angry, but they’re new here, and I bet that’s super hard to do."

"Nice", Keyleth agrees, for simplicity’s sake. Actually, she had avoided the boy’s eyes very deliberately, because new people never understood how she wasn’t good at meeting new people. But she’s certain that if she was new at a school (she suppresses a shudder), she would want people to think she’s nice.

The classroom door opens, and the new girl steps back in — alone. She straightens her green skirt, looks around, and begins to make her way back to her seat.

"Hey, Vex!" Keyleth twitches, then looks up to see Pike, standing up out of her chair to wave at the new girl. The girl jumps a little. "You’re Vex, aren’t you? Come over, I’ll introduce you to everybody!"

Vex looks around somewhat forlornly, but Keyleth knows from experience that Pike’s smile can’t really be resisted. She tugs at her dark braid as she steps closer, smiling just a little.

"Alright, everybody, this is Vex", Pike begins cheerily. "Vex, you’ve met me and Grog. Over here’s Scanlan, and this is Keyleth!" Keyleth waves awkwardly. "Keyleth sometimes doesn’t like talking, but she doesn’t mean it in a rude way, like, ever."

"Except we don’t really know that, because again, Keyleth doesn’t like talking", Scanlan interjects, leaning back in his chair. Keyleth tilts at him, slightly confused; his tone is mean, but Pike is still smiling, so he might not have meant it.

"Well… hello", Vex says. Her hands are twisted together tightly. "I’m Vex’ahlia… Vessar."

"Where’d you use to live?", Grog asks curiously, then shrinks back down into his seat with wide eyes immediately. "Still sorry for before, though."

"It’s okay", she replies cautiously. "Pike’s grandfather gave me some band-aids."

"Aw, that’s badass!", Scanlan says, grinning when Pike tuts at him. "What? I didn’t say the f-word. Or the d-word. Or the b-word. Or the other b-word —"

"Is that your schedule?", Pike interrupts, pointing at the laminated sheet in Vex’ hand. The girl nods, pushing it over for inspection. Keyleth leans over to look at it, glancing for the electives, and begins to flap one of her hands in excitement. "Oooh, you’re in Nature! Keyleth’s there, too!"

Keyleth nods enthusiastically, smiling at Vex. "I can show you", she says eagerly.

Vex looks at her and smiles as well; Keyleth immediately shifts her glance upwards a little to focus on her hairline. "To be honest, I don’t even know what you do in a subject called Nature."

"There’s a garden!", Keyleth says loudly, happily. Nature is her absolute favourite subject; they grow flowers and some herbs and some vegetables, and last year there was a _frog_ living in the pond, and she _loves_ it. Her right hand flapping softly, she points out of the back windows of the classroom. Vex stretches in her seat, craning her head to look outside, but clearly not getting much of a view.

Keyleth hesitates, then gets up off of Pike’s desk and reaches out to carefully tug at the fabric of Vex’ shirt. "You can see the pond from the window", she says, and tries to make the end of the sentence a question. The girl smiles widely and gets up, walking after her to the windows.

The view out into the garden is wonderful on days like these, all sun and late summer air. Her eyes trail over the rows of soil: back towards the fence, the still-yellow sunflowers, the heather, the lavender; a little patch of kitchen herbs; a bucket of spearmint, a bucket of peppermint, a bucket of lemon balm. Smaller buckets hang on the fence nearby, those are where the tomatoes grow; the cucumber planters, too, are close enough to the fence to climb up the wood…

When she stands up on her tip-toes and looks down, she can see the pond; it’s half-shaded, half in the sun right now, wildflowers planted around the edge and water hyacinths floating on the water.

Keyleth sighs happily, both of her hands softly moving by her sides.

"Wow", Vex murmurs. Keyleth looks to the side and sees her looking out wide-eyed. "I didn’t think you’d have so much green here at all…"

"I can tell you what they all are", Keyleth says excitedly, barely waiting for Vex’ nod to point out and name every plant that she can remember, which is every one of them. She loves this garden. It’s the most _hers_ out of the things in the school.

Vex continues to nod while Keyleth talks, but ever slower. When she finishes, she breathes out loudly. "That is… that’s a lot."

"Yeah! We worked on it all year last year."

"I don’t know much about how to _garden_, exactly, to be honest. I just like to - to be in the forest. It’s nice", Vex finishes lamely.

Keyleth smiles at her, fixing her eyes on the girl’s hairline. Her heart is beating faster than normal, because this is going _good_, Vex is a new person who is being _nice_, and it makes her feel all warm. "I can show you how. I showed Wren, last year, and they’re good at it now."

Vex hesitates, then smiles back. "I’d like that. Thank you, Keyleth."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not a native English speaker, so if I've made any mistakes in that regard, feel free to point them out. Hope you enjoy!


	6. chapter 6 - vax

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vax considers their situation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> u might've noticed i'm not real good with chapter summaries, and u would be right. i just love these darling children so much you guys  
i'm trying to put out a chapter every four days or so, at this point!

Vax finds his way to the currently empty jungle gym, up through the rope pyramid and into the little crow’s nest, where he folds himself up small and closes his eyes against the blinding white sky.

Vax doesn’t like being angry; he doesn’t like snapping at people who haven’t done anything to deserve it by any definition. Most of all, he doesn’t like making Vex anxious. She cares so much about what people think about both of them, all of the time, and as much as it tends to annoy him, he doesn’t want to make her sad.

When their mother told them that they were going to be leaving Byroden, she was the one who stayed composed while Vax screamed and ranted and debated — with their mother, their father once he came to meet them, on one notable occasion even with the driver of the car that brought them to Westruun (Vax demanded he turn the car around or he wouldn’t get back in at the gas station. Vex somehow managed to talk his demands down to an ice cream each and a bag of gummybears, to the extreme relief of the driver).

Vax is not sure whether he’s okay with Vex being the grown-up between the two of them. Before they left, his mom told him to take care of her, and he’s the older one, too; it’s his job, now.

He takes a deep breath and leans back. He’s just gonna have to be better.

"Hey, scrawny."

Vax nearly jumps out of his skin before his eyes refocus against the light, and he sees his sister grinning mildly down at him, her chin resting on the edge of the crow’s nest. "Still sulking?"

"You’ve gotta start calling out earlier on!", Vax says loudly, his heart beating high in his chest. "What if I knock you off accidentally?" She shrugs. "And how’d you even know I’d be here, you creep?"

"Oh, that was easy. I just looked for the highest spot on the playground and started there. Next, I would’ve started to check for doors to the roof."

"Shut up", Vax murmurs, but he can’t help but smile nevertheless as he gets to his feet. "Come on, let’s get down from here."

"You say that as if it wasn’t your idea to get up in the first place."

They climb down in silence; Vax lets himself drop the last few feet to the ground. "Did you pick up my schedule, by any chance?", he asks as he tugs his shirt into place.

Vex pulls a face at him. "I did. It says English next, then History and Library, and then that’s it."

"Why are the days so _long _here?"

"I suppose they don’t really count Library and P.E. to be school in the strictest sense", Vex says thoughtfully. "And the mornings are mostly things like Arts and Music, too."

"Well, it’s still bollocks."

"Hey!"

"Sorry, mum. Oh!" With a surge of excitement, Vax grabs Vex’ hand and starts tugging her towards the gym. "I didn’t show you the forest yet!"

Vex puts up a cursory protest, goody-two-shoes that she is, but she lets herself be dragged to the fence that borders the concrete schoolyard. "Are you sure that’s allowed?", she says half-heartedly as Vax lets go of her hand and re-ties his shoes.

He snorts as he stands back up and folds his hands into a makeshift step. "I’m certain it’s not."

Vex tilts her head at him and bites her lip.

Vax sighs. "Look, we promised Mum we’d be good, but Mum wouldn’t want us to not _explore_. Dad’s house is awful, I’m just getting my energy out here so I don’t mess up there."

A grin spreads on her face. "Well, that’s just good planning."

He grins back as he boosts her to the top of the fence; she clambers over it and lands on the other side. Vax wedges his feet in between the bars and follows. Just as he’s in the process of climbing over the top, he hears Vex say, "You just called him Dad, you know."

He drops and rights himself. "Accident. Come on."

The two of them wind their way through the trees. Really, to call this a forest is a bit of an overstatement; from what he can see, it’s merely a fairly thick cluster of trees and underbrush between the school grounds and the nearby houses, but it’s enough to get Vex excited for right now. Behind them, the bell rings for break, and for a moment Vax thinks that his sister is going to make them turn around, but she’s just walking, sometimes giving an excited sound before she points out something to him. After a while, he climbs up to the low branches of a tree, dangling his feet and looking at Vex darting around a small clearing.

When he gets bored, he hops back down and walks further into the forest; Vex catches up to him after a while. After just about a minute of walking, they discover another fence bordering a small garden behind the main school building. Vax listens as Vex explains that this is where her Nature lessons will be taking place, and that the strange red-headed girl who sits in front of him is actually quite nice, and she knows a _lot_ about plants.

"You know, maybe we can make it nice here", she says, finally, as they’re heading back towards the fence they entered over.

There’s a tone of hope in her voice, so Vax nods although the notion sends a twisting feeling through his chest for no reason he can pinpoint. "Maybe", he replies. "Just gotta make our peace with learning _French_ of all things."

"Let it go", Vex says with a sigh. "He put you in Athletics, as well."

Vax wants to snap back at her, and if it was anyone else he would, but it’s not. So he pulls a face, jumps to swing off a low branch for a moment, and continues on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not a native English speaker, so feel free to point out any mistakes in that regard. Let me know what you think! Hope you enjoy!


	7. chapter 7 - pike

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pike continues to be an angel. And she wonders about some of her classmates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (announces schedule) (immediately misses schedule) awesome

Miss Vysoren has Illya Tal’dorei hand out the schedules to everyone on the way out the door, so Pike links arms with Keyleth and reads over hers as they slowly make their way down into the schoolyard, Keyleth leading her through the chattering mass of students and Grog and Scanlan trailing behind them.

"You’ve got Religion as an extra", she says, nudging Keyleth in the side. "That’s with me!" Keyleth smiles widely. "And Nature, of course… oh! I got Latin!"

"_Latin_?!", Grog says loudly. "Why would you ever do that?!"

"To talk to all the Romans, obviously", Scanlan replies.

Pike rolls her eyes good-naturedly as they step out into the fresh air. She looks around for the twins, but they’re not in view right now.

"Percy takes Latin", Keyleth notes. "He likes it."

"You know, I’ve not really talked to Percy a lot yet, Keyleth."

Keyleth tilts her head. "Yeah, but he’s nice!"

She doesn’t know Percy very well, but she’s heard his last name thrown around. Percy de Rolo is a little strange. He used to be in third grade when Pike was in first grade, even though he’s about her age; then, he and his older siblings disappeared in the middle of that school year. Pike always assumed they’d moved away.

Near the end of the last school year, however, Percy returned. She didn’t spend a lot of time with him then; he kept away from pretty much everyone, very withdrawn, very silent. To her amazement, Keyleth did manage to get through to him a little, being his neighbor in class.

Pike sighs and smiles. "I’ll ask if he wants to sit with me."

They spend most of the break comparing schedules; Grog is in Athletics and Drama this year, and Scanlan, who has been at the top of that latter class since Pike can remember, is absolutely delighted. Scanlan also suggests planning when everyone is going to be in the Afternoons program, though Pike is fairly sure he’s going to be there every day; that, at least, was what happened last year.

She knows she’ll have to stay in Afternoons three days a week, whenever her grandad has oversight duties, but she doesn’t mind. From her perspective, there’s really not much to dislike about it: she can do homework and talk to her classmates at the same time, which is lovely, she thinks.

Vex and Vax reappeara few minutes before break ends from somewhere around the jungle gym; Pike spies the boy hanging upside down from the rope pyramid, his sister kicking her feet beside him. She nudges Grog and Keyleth. "Should we go over, you think?"

Grog turns to watch Vax actually start laughing in response to something Vex said, hard enough to nearly lose his grip on the ropes, while she grins widely at him. Pike realises that she hasn’t seen Vax smile yet — not while they were talking, and not in class either.

Grog shrugs. "Nah, I think they’re good."

Pike worries her lower lip. "Alright."

"You’re gonna take them in as strays, aren’t you", Scanlan says with a sigh. It isn’t a question. She swats his arm, but doesn’t protest, and he smirks knowingly.

Grog and Keyleth start a game of tag and force Pike and Scanlan to join in after a minute of tagging and re-tagging each other with barely any running in between, so they’re all appropriately winded once the bell rings. Pike waits for the twins at the entrance while the other three go ahead to the classroom, watching the other students walk by. Odessa Tal’dorei from sixth grade gives her a quick wave and a smile as she walks by, her brother Gren holding her hand, tiny even for a second-grader; Pike waves back.

Percy passes her as well, and Pike remembers her promise to Keyleth. "Hey!" She taps him on the shoulder, and he turns to her with a start. "Hey", she says again, smiling at him. "You’re Percy, right?"

"Percival, yes. Hello", he says in his neat, streamlined accent.

"Keyleth told me you have Latin this year, and I’m there too! Do you know who teaches that?"

He hesitates, and for a second, there’s a flash of something strange across his face. "I heard that the old teacher resigned, so I’m actually not sure. You’re new to Latin, then, I assume?"

Pike nods. "But I’m really excited for it. My grandad has taught me a little bit at home, and it just sounds so lovely!"

Percy’s serious face breaks into a bright smile so fast it almost startles her. "It really does! My father— I have some books in Latin, too."

"That’s so cool!"

He hesitates and looks over his shoulder. "I’d best get inside, but—"

"No, all good", she reassures him. "Tell Keyleth I’ll be right there, yeah?" He awkwardly lifts his hand in response as he makes his way inside.

Pike stands up on her tiptoes, looking around until she spots the twins walking towards the building. She smiles and waves to them, and Vex waves back, but her brother remains stone-faced.

"Where were you all break?", Pike asks merrily as she hooks her arm with Vex’, just like she would with Keyleth, and ignores the way Vex flinches when she does so. "I was looking for you guys at first, but I couldn’t find you!"

"Jungle gym", Vax replies briskly.

"Did you look at your electives yet, Vax?" She steers them into the building and towards the stairs. "We already found out that Vex is in Nature with Keyleth, but I have no idea what your subjects are."

"We’re both in French", Vex replies in her brother’s stead. "And he’s got Athletics, besides."

Pike combines her instinctual grimace and the smile already on her face into something that she’s reasonably sure resembles an expression of excitement. "That’s cool! Grog’s got that, too. Miss de Vord is tough, but she’s super nice."

"Awesome", Vax murmurs. Pike elects to ignore his tone.

They enter the classroom just as second bell rings, so Pike ushers the twins to their desks and sends an apologetic smile towards Miss Vysoren, who is already standing up from her desk among the quietening murmurs. She slinks into her seat next to Grog and waves at Keyleth.

"Alright, I hope you had a nice break", Miss Vysoren says loudly to make the last chattering voices quiet down. "For our new arrivals and for whoever might’ve forgotten", she sends a look towards Pike with a smile, "first bell means what? Lyra?"

"First bell means start walking to class, second bell means be in your seat", Lyra says, louder than necessary, and lifts her hand to her mouth. "Sorry", she whispers.

Pike nods with a good-as-gold smile. In her periphery, she sees Scanlan lean forward and mouth _ooh, badass!_. Once Miss Vysoren looks away, she pulls a face at him and grins.

"Fantastic. Now, first point of order…" Miss Vysoren smirks. "Who wants to start telling us what they did over the summer?"

For a while, Pike listens to her classmate’s stories. Jarett talks about visiting his grandparents, who live in a country where the coldest days are warmer than a full summer in Westruun. Lyra excitedly recounts four weeks at the City Library’s summer reading program; at one point, Pike glances over to Percy and actually sees him taking notes on what she says, and suppresses a giggle.

Grog clumsily strings together a few sentences about visiting family up in the mountains, and she’s actually very proud of him for it, showing him an enthusiastic thumbs up. Even Keyleth speaks up, quietly describing a camping trip with her dad. When she’s done, she beams first at Pike, then at Percy, both of whom respond in kind.

Once it’s Scanlan’s turn, he actually stands up to be able to gesture more grandly, and over the course of a good ten minutes, he tells a story about looking for fish in a wishing well that Pike is ninety-nine per cent sure is a lie, but she still laughs enough for her stomach to hurt, and Miss Vysoren lets him be.

Pike herself doesn’t raise her hand, instead waiting until the teacher points at her. "How’s about you, Pike, what did you do over the summer?"

She sits up straighter. "Miss Vysoren, do I _have_ to say?", she asks loudly.

Miss Vysoren tilts her head and looks at her curiously. "Of course not, but I’m sure everyone would love to hear it."

Pike pretends to think for a moment, then merrily says, "oh, alright then!", and starts talking about her grandad teaching her to whittle over the summer, and how to use a compass, and their trip to a small village by the seashore what she now knows is "the north". She really is quite proud of that, to be honest.

While she’s speaking, Miss Vysoren narrows her eyes at her, her smile widening. Pike gives her an innocent smile back and tries not to feel too smug when Vax, once called upon, gruffly murmurs that he’d prefer not to speak right now. Vex doesn’t take up the opening, stammering a few sentences about seeing new places, but that’s alright, too.

Percy opts out, as well, in his crisp accent, and Miss Vysoren accepts that without another comment.

The lesson continues easily; Miss Vysoren reminds them of some of last year’s tips on how to write a story, and for the last fifteen minutes, they break out all of their brand-new exercise books to write their holiday stories down. The teacher walks a slowly winding path around the classroom among the scratching of pencils on paper, stopping on the way to help Grog with his spelling and to remind Scanlan to _please_ write _somewhat_ legible words.

Pike is focused on her writings, so she only looks up when Miss Vysoren puts her hand on her shoulder as if she were looking at her page. "You’re an angel, little Miss Trickfoot", she says very quietly. "Good job." Pike grins down at her desk.

Miss Vysoren chuckles, then stands back up, tapping her finger on the paper. "B-e-_a_-c-h."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i appreciate comments a whole bunch! hope you enjoy!


	8. chapter 8 - vex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vex considers this new place, this new parent. What changes, and what stays the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u SO much for the lovely comments, i appreciate it so much! please keep doing That i need frequent reassurance  
this chapter is a little bit sad but i promise the found-family will come soon, i love them too much to not follow up the hurt with comfort, especially with them being Babies here
> 
> content note: emotionally abusive behavior by a parent

The twins retreat to a corner table in the cafeteria for lunch break after English class, Vex too insecure to join Pike’s group on their own initiative and Vax too determinedly grumpy. There’s sausages and some kind of mashed potato with side vegetables. Vex eats everything on her plate, and after sending her brother a stern glare, so does he. Neither of them says what they’re both thinking: that their mother would’ve given much, _had _given much, to reliably put a full plate like this in front of them every day.

Vex chews on her nails during the next lesson, turning the thought over in her mind again and again. She runs her hands over the fabric of the skirt that had been in her closet at her father’s house when she arrived. Looks at her shiny new shoes that fit her to a T. Mr Noja, the teacher she’s already met when he came to investigate her clash with Grog in the morning, stutters his way through the history lesson, occupied more with Scanlan’s constant jokes and jibes than anything else.

After the last lesson of the day — Library, though she doesn’t really understand why that would be denoted an actual subject — Vex is tired enough that she wants to curl into a ball where she stands.

Mr Noja is the teacher for this one, too. He tells them about different parts of the library, asks them what their favourite books are, and has them sort them into groups. Vax refuses to answer when he’s asked, and she squeezes her eyes shut until Mr Noja confusedly moves on. When it’s her turn, she says _Charlotte’s Web_, which basically tells nobody anything, but it’s the last book her mother read to them, and she liked it well enough.

The final bell rings. Vex mechanically puts her things back into her backpack, and vaguely smiles at Pike when the girl quickly says goodbye before running off, Grog in tow. When Vex gets up, Vax is immediately at her side, murmuring "come on, Stubby, let’s go". As they exit the room, Mr Noja is still being beleaguered by White-Haired Boy, Glasses Girl, and Keyleth, the former two questioning him on new books acquired over the summer, the latter observing the spectacle with barely concealed glee.

"D’you think he’s gonna be bleeding from the ears once they’re done?", Vax murmurs to her once they’re out of earshot.

She chuckles, tired. "Probably. Why didn’t you answer the book question?"

"He just wanted to draw us in and get us to _open up_."

"So?"

"Annoys me."

Vex rolls her eyes as they make their way through the throngs of kids still lingering in the hallways and the entrance hall and step out of the double doors. The fresh air hits her like peppermint gum, and she takes a deep breath to clear her head, closing her eyes for a few seconds. Vax sighs and lightly tugs on her jacket to keep her from walking into people.

For this reason alone, Vex notices as he freezes beside her for a split second before he keeps walking. "Did father dearest say he was picking us up?", he asks quietly.

She opens her eyes. "Why do- oh."

Syldor is standing just outside the school gates, somehow standing apart from the mess of cars and kids and parents around him. Their father is a tall man, taller than anyone she remembers meeting in Byroden, and he keeps his back perfectly straight as he waits, his phone pressed to his ear, currently not looking towards them.

Vex stands up straighter. "Try not to fight with him, okay?"

"Vex’ahlia…" Her brother is the only person outside of their parents who calls her by her full name almost every time.

"_Try_, Vax. Please?"

He sighs and looks away for a moment. When he speaks again, there is a hardness to his voice. "It’s gonna have to happen at some point, you know. We’re not gonna get along just because you want us to." She goes to interrupt, but he continues, "And you know, it’s not all my fault. He’s there too. Have you told _him_ to be nice?"

"I can’t —"

"Two sides of a coin, Vex’ahlia."

They’ve kept moving as they’ve talked, so they’re now nearly at the school gates. To the side, Vex sees Grog bump fists with a slightly younger-looking boy, though they’re nearly the same size. She focuses her eyes on them until they stop stinging. "Do you want me to talk to him, too? Is that what you’re saying?"

"I’m saying it’s not all me." He tugs gently at her shirt, a reassurance. "That’s all."

Their father spots them, now, raising an eyebrow in acknowledgement. Vex gives a careful smile. Phone still at his ear, he motions for them to follow, and turns without a word.

Vax says nothing during the minute they spend walking to the teacher’s parking lot, where Syldor’s car waits. Vex files that information away; she didn’t know her father was affiliated with the school, but it makes sense, with how fast he was able to get them enrolled.

Syldor gets in the drivers seat, and Vex and Vax scramble into the back. Vex moves to stow her backpack by her feet as he starts the car and backs out of the lot. His eyes flick up to the rearview mirror every once and again, but he doesn’t speak.

Vex shifts in her seat uneasily. She glances at her brother, who has slunk down into his seat and is staring out of the tinted window, his fingers drumming a rhythm on his knee. Once she notices, within a minute, the beats grow louder in her ears until they seem deafening. She manages to ignore it for a while, until finally, almost of its own accord, her hand darts out to knock Vax’ hand off his knee. He twitches, glares at her, shoves her hand away.

"Stop." 

Syldor’s voice is sharp, yet somehow still bored-sounding, and Vex shrinks back into her seat. "Sorry."

Her father sighs slightly, keeping his eyes on the road. "I sincerely hope you made a better impression at school."

"I- I think we did, yeah", Vex says hurriedly. "We—"

"Don’t stutter, Vex’ahlia."

She breathes. "Our teacher is very nice, her name is Miss Vysoren. She teaches…" _Don’t stutter._ "French and English, maybe more things, but we haven’t had those yet."

"I was hoping you would be placed in French class. It’s absolutely unsustainable that you have not been taught the language, at your age." Syldor shakes his head. "You will both receive further tutoring in that subject, to be sure. I suppose other necessities will become clear with time… but we cannot have a deficit in French."

"Mum wasn’t really in a position to be teaching us _French_ of all useless things, to be fair", Vax says sharply. When Vex glares at him, he shrugs, jaw set in a determined angry line.

"I’m sure in your mother’s life, it would have served little purpose." His grey eyes dart up in the mirror. "Should one aspire to more than a hovel to call home, however, things look a little different."

Vax leans forward, shoves his fingers into his mouth, and bites down on his knuckles in frustration. Vex holds her breath and turns to look out of the window. They are driving through the fancy part of town, now, where the houses rushing past have fronts of bright white stone and little hedged-in gardens. She squints her eyes shut, reducing her vision to shades of dark and light.

She remembers when they arrived, just a few days ago though it seems like so much longer, and Vax and her spent their first night in separate rooms. Vex lay awake under the covers for what felt like hours, crying into her fist and shaking with missing her mother, missing her brother. They shared a mattress back in Byroden, a big one, never grown out of the habit, and now there were _walls_ and _doors_ and _cold _between them, and she couldn’t bear it.

At some point, she must have given too much sound, because steps made their way up to her room, and her door opened. She held her breath until she couldn’t bear it anymore, and then it came out in a sob.

That was when she’d heard Syldor sigh. "Oh, Vex’ahlia. Do pull yourself together." No response. "You’ll get used to living here soon enough. I had thought you were old enough to manage without… this." She still hadn’t answered. Then another sigh. "Stop crying, Vex’ahlia. You’ll feel better soon." And the door fell shut behind him.

(Minutes later, Vax snuck over to her room, and they spent the rest of the night curled up next to each other. She stopped crying after a while, and he pretended he hadn’t, and they’d gotten some six or seven hours of sleep.)

_Don’t stutter. Don’t cry. _Such are the commandments of her father.

After a few more minutes, they pull into the driveway of the big white house that is their father’s home in Westruun. Syldor gets out of the car without a word, shutting the driver’s side door behind him, and begins walking towards the house.

Out of her periphery, Vex sees Vax reach for his backpack, glancing towards her as he does so. "Sorry, I guess", he says quietly. Then he climbs out of the car, the door falls shut, and Vex is alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm a little unsure about writing Syldor, any feedback on that would be greatly appreciated! even tho he has like 10 lines in this chapter lmao


	9. bonus I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the end of the first day of the school year, a few of the kids find themselves gathering.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is not formatted too nicely and i am Dismayed at it. but neither part was long enough to make a separate chapter out of so rip me i guess :D this is more of an interlude than anything else bc after this the story rolls into pt. 2!! i'm doing this more for my own mental structure than anything else. i tend to zero in on introspection and forget about making something go on on the outside of the characters; i notice myself struggling with that even as i write the story lol
> 
> content note: mentioned past physical abuse of a child; very very vague mention of percy's backstory

**I — scanlan**

After the last class of the day, Scanlan finds his way to the principal’s office.

Grog accompanies him, in an arrangement that they’ve followed since, in first grade, a couple of fourth graders made fun of Scanlan in the waiting room, and Grog, then just beginning his repetition of second grade, got them off his back. When the older boy had to repeat third grade, as well (Scanlan has pieced together by now that Grog has repeated every grade except the first), he had been secretly delighted.

"Ready for the Assembly of the Problem Children?", Scanlan asks quietly as they’re walking through the corridors.

"It’s not _problem_ children", Grog replies doubtfully. "It’s just… some kids who have, you know, special knees."

_Needs. _Scanlan suppresses a chuckle. "Honestly, with the scars on yours, I’m sure you have spectacular knees, big boy."

He doesn’t really mind this yearly process. It makes sure that Grog gets more time allotted for his school work, and that Scanlan’s mom does not have to transfer the school money for lunches, and that little Keyleth has her stimming things available and her nope-out policies approved (they’re not actually called nope-out policies, but that’s what he calls it when she gets overwhelmed and has to leave the room). It’s good.

He just hates sitting in front of the office, waiting with a half-dozen other kids, a circle of the unfortunate. With Grog, it’s okay because they know each other, but last year, he had to spend what felt like hours uncomfortably staring at the wall around the only other person in the room. Lillith Daturai had a bruised face, and she hid her hands in her sweater. A few weeks later, she said goodbye to the class because she was moving to an unspecified "away", and Scanlan had to pretend like he was riddling for the reason along with the rest of his friends. Sometimes, he really does wonder if teachers think kids can’t connect point A to point B when the entire rest of the alphabet is not even in the picture.

It’s a different issue entirely when it comes to geography, though. He smirks to himself at his own joke, slightly regretful that explaining it to Grog would both be painfully time-consuming and also rob the joke of all of its funny-juice.

They’ve arrived at the door to the principal’s waiting room. Grog turns to him. "Rock-paper-scissors. Loser goes in first." Scanlan picks scissors, because Grog always picks rock; when the inevitable happens, he groans and pretends to be all mad for a second before punching Grog lightly in the arm and reaching for the doorknob.

The waiting room hasn’t changed, he observes as he steps in. A couple of light-wood chairs, the same kind that they have in classes, stand along the walls; next to the door to the actual office, the corner desk that’s sometimes manned by an assistant or a secretary still seemingly holds the same writing pad, cup of pens, and potted fern. Framed group photographs of all of the teachers line the walls, along with portrait photos and brief descriptions of the form teachers.

A few of the chairs are already occupied. As he and Grog find seats, Scanlan quickly scans the room — and almost loses the determinedly unexpressive mask that he puts on in this situation only.

Usually, the cast of this particular scene stays the same year to year. It’s always him, Grog, Keyleth, and sometimes one or two of the Tal’dorei kids sitting there, the latter merely waiting for their father to be finished with work for the day.

But there’s two people in the room that he didn’t expect, and from his class no less. Percy Whatshisname, for some reason white-haired and, as far as Scanlan knows, a picture-perfect model student, and a younger girl that, judging from the white streak than runs through her brown hair, has to be a sister or at least a cousin. By the size of her, she has to be in first grade.

Percy looks up at Scanlan as he steps through the door, raises his eyebrows, and nods in recognition. Scanlan doesn’t laugh but by a hair’s breadth, instead silently nodding back. His nod transforms into more of a bow, but he’s gotta have his fun.

**II — percy**

Percy sits in his chair, his back ramrod straight, and focuses on where his feet meet the ground.

Cassandra has tucked herself into his side, but her eyes remain wide open, more or less staring into his jacket. His arm has slung itself around her at some point, like it’s a robot. How would an arm-robot have to look? Percy lets his mind drift to _levers_ and _joints_ and _metal_ and _cold_ and _sharp_ and-

He comes out of his absent-minded thought like missing two steps of a staircase, barely suppressing a gasp. Cassandra’s hold on him tightens for a moment. Slowly, softly, his hand strokes over her back. He knows today was probably difficult for her, the first day really out of the house and away from— well, everyone.

With some effort, Percy returns to the robot-arm, but it’s got wooden details this time, running along the length of the lower and upper part, leading into wooden palms that conceal a metal skeleton. He zeroes in on the fingers, their minute details, the multitudes of tiny joints. No lines on the wood. The part his mind catches on is where and how the upper part would be attached, and would—

The door opens; he looks up quickly, recognises Scanlan and Grog from his class, and nods to them in greeting like he’s seen some adults do. Scanlan raises his eyebrows and somewhat exaggeratedly nods back, while Grog heads straight for a corner seat. Percy feels a corner of his mouth twitch upwards before he refocuses on the inside of his head.

He recalls Grog, from the before. They would’ve been in the same grade then, too, if it hadn’t been for him skipping a grade and Grog repeating one. He does a quick calculation and grimaces at how many more times Grog must have been held back after that.

Scanlan, however, is unknown to him, and has therefor been categorised earlier when Percy saw him step into the classroom. _Friend group: Pike, Grog, Keyleth?, __New Girl__ Vexalia?_, that’s what it says in his notebook, next to a neat sketch of the seating arrangement for the year. His friendship with Pike Trickfoot and Keyleth Ashari certainly speaks for him, Percy thinks. Keyleth has actually been able to make him smile, earlier, when she came into the waiting room and immediately grinned at him.

Cassandra pulls at his sleeve, and Percy looks down to meet her eyes. Lifting her hands, she signs, _will you talk for me?_

He nods. _Don’t worry. We won’t have to say a lot of things. The—_ he forgets a word, frowns — _older people have explained most things and this is just_— his frown deepens — _paper things._ His lacking command of sign language is of ongoing chagrin to him, only partly because Cassandra has been able to pick it up easy as breathing. Granted, she also does need it more than he does.

She notices his dismay, and her eyes shine with amusement when she reaches up and taps his head. _Dummy_, she signs. Then, she hesitates, a sudden beaming smile spreading on her face, and somehow combines the signs for _dummy_, _white_, and _brother_. Taps his chest, repeats the sign. He rolls his eyes, but gives her a smile at the same time. It’s not like many people will recognise the jab for what it is.

The door to Principal Tal’dorei’s office opens, and Keyleth steps outside. She gives a brief smile to him, then to Grog and Scanlan, who are by now playing a game where they slap each other’s hands and try to pull away from the other in time. Keyleth grabs her jacket from one of the chairs and skips outside, the door shutting behind her.

Percy has time for a brief moment to wonder whether the alphabetical order of who’s called in will sort them by the "de" or the "Rolo", and then Principal Tal’dorei is at the door, giving him and his sister the strange half-sad half-pitiful smile that he’s used to by now. "Percival, Cassandra, will you come in, please?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> real talk i love hearing feedback for this, it's been a long time since i've uploaded things. so thank you for all of the comments, i really appreciate them!  
also, if you wanna see anything in the story, feel free to leave ideas/prompts in the comments and i'll do my best. B)


	10. pt. II: in progress. chapter 9 - pike

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pike makes a decision, regarding the new kids.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MY APOLOGIES for not updating for like two weeks, i got distracted prepping a planar-travel themed one-shot for my friends and then i got sick. i will try to stick to updating at least once a week now tho! thx for sticking with me pals

The week goes on, and things begin to settle in around the school.

Pike spends an afternoon pouring over a map of the city on which she’s marked the places where Grog’s folks and Keyleth live; she creates routes with pins and threads that wind through the roads of the city, marking the fastest ways to their doorsteps.

Grog’s family is the closest, of course; they live in the same area of town, and she can make it to his place in the space of ten minutes, if she runs. Not that she’s likely to need it, given Grog’s well-established spot on the mattress next to her bed. Keyleth’s house is far on the outskirts; she takes a bus in, about thirty minutes one way to school. Pike makes sure to put a handful of pins to the side in case she wants to add more places to her map, later on.

Percy turns out to be great at Latin, outpacing Pike in grammar after two lessons. The teacher is an elderly man, hunched over, with a marvelous tuft of grey hair, a few scars that burrow among the wrinkles on his face, and he introduces himself as Father Reynal. He encourages them to actually speak to each other in the language, which Pike loves even though her vocabulary is limited. She chatters merrily in a mix of English and Latin, mainly to Percy, enjoying the melody and rhythm of it; this is where she’s ahead of him, and she discovers a delightful competitive streak in him. Outside of class, though, he keeps to himself.

Pike needles her grandad about him one night at dinner. "But I know he used to be at the school years ago!"

"So you do." Wilhand blows air over his bowl of soup.

"Don’t you know what happened? Did the family move away?"

"I’m not sure, Pike."

"But you must have-"

Wilhand puts his piece of dipping bread down on the table, pushes his chair out, and turns so he’s directly facing her. His face is grimmer than she expects; she’d had her face half-buried in her own soup bowl. "Whether I know or not, I am not allowed to tell you, and I don’t want to tell you. Do you know why?" Pike mutely shakes her head, and he lifts his hand with two fingers outstretched.

"Two reasons. One, because I work at the school, some people — both kids and adults, really, they tell me about some, _just_ some", he gestures for emphasis, "of their problems. And when they do that, they know that I will not talk about their private things to anyone at all without their say-so." He reaches forward, eyes twinkling, and taps her nose. "Not even to my favourite granddaughter." She smiles, taking her cue to relax a little.

"And two." Wilhand sits back again, sighs, and folds his hands in his lap. "Even if I wasn’t legally obligated — even if I was allowed to tell other people, I would not do that. Because when someone tells you a secret, they trust you to keep it."

Pike wipes her mouth on the back of her hand, hesitating. "But what if— maybe if I knew, I could be a better friend, you know? Maybe he’s just scared."

"Well, then that’s his to feel, my dear. You can’t make him be not afraid anymore just by wanting it." She must have been pouting a little, because Wilhand chuckles and reaches out to muss up her hair. "Ah, Pike, I know your heart is in the right place. Just be a friend, and if he wants to share, he’ll know you’re there."

So Pike tries not to prod, while still integrating Percy into her little group of friends. He’s reluctant, but with her and Keyleth’s simultanous prodding, he warms up ever so slightly. During lunch and some of the breaks, his little sister pulls him away. The little first-grader is called Cassandra, and she doesn’t speak, instead moving her hands about in patterns that confuse Pike, fascinate Keyleth, and apparently make sense to Percy, because he responds in kind. With some difficulty, Pike remembers what her grandad said about prying and doesn’t ask any of the ten thousand questions in her mind.

Meanwhile, the twins keep to themselves. Vax continues to glower at everyone and anyone who looks at him or his sister, while Vex, as shy as she appeared on her first day, seems to have her mind set on being top-of-the-class in every subject she can get her hands on. It’s inevitable for her to immediately clash with Lyra, who has easily held that spot for the last three years. During one English class, the two end up on their feet, heatedly arguing whether it’s proper grammar to say "more than she".

It takes Miss Vysoren a minute to interrupt their shouting long enough to tell them that yes, it is, and to then give both of them a time-out. During the entire exchange, Vax remains coiled on the edge of his seat, eyes darting back and forth between the girls and Miss Vysoren. When Lyra walks by him, Pike just catches the outskirts of the absolutely murderous glare that he sends her, and suddenly is quietly glad that Vax and Lyra don’t share any electives.

She does feel bad for Vex, though, because the girl’s eyes get wide and a little shiny as she sets her chin defiantly. When she returns to her seat, Vax doesn’t react or reach out for her, and that in itself is jarring in its strangeness. Once the bell rings, he sweeps his stuff into his backpack and continues to fiddle with the clasps on it until Vex has gotten packed up and near-runs out of the room.

Pike doesn’t prod, and she doesn’t run after the twins, and when Vex returns to Maths with red-rimmed eyes, she neither stares nor asks if she can help. But she wants to, and she nearly bites her lip bloody during the course of the lesson, staring down at her exercise book.

Wilhand always says that she imagines missions for herself, missions to help people, and once she’s set on them, she gets herself a crew of her friends to get to her goal.

She remembers when she met Grog, when he was in first grade and she was a tiny four-year-old brought along to her grandfather’s work because she didn’t get a spot in kindergarten. Most of the time, she would play on the playground during lessons, eat lunch in the cafeteria, and go inside as soon as the first kids came out of the building for their breaks.

After a while, though, something disrupted that routine. Grog, even then a bulky kid, was brought in nearly every day, bruised and angry and just _sad. _So she tried to make him feel better, climbed onto his shouldersand played thumb-catching with him while Wilhand disinfected his cut and checked him for broken bones. When he was gone, she would ask endless questions — why Grog was hurt so often, whether things were dangerous where he lived, why no one kept him safe.

It only took about one and a half weeks of this routine until her grandad sat down at the kitchen table, poured over bills for an hour, then got up with an air of grim determination and moved the spare mattress into Pike’s room. The next day, Grog came home with them after school.

He’s been Pike’s big brother and her best friend in the world ever since. He’s carried her on his shoulders more times than she can count, probably just as many times as she’s patched him up and tugged him away from a bad situation. And did that not start with Granpa Wilhand, prodding?

Pike glances around. Grog is crouched in his seat, eyes glued to the blackboard, trying to follow; Scanlan is idly drawing in his exercise book; Keyleth is fiddling with a spinning ring. Percy is just walking up to the board and, turning to the side in order to write something, already smirking.

Pike feels a smile spreading on her lips, and she leans back in her seat, arms folded.

She has a crew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for all ur comments, kudos, and, at this point, nearly 1k hits! that's amazing!


	11. chapter 10 - keyleth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keyleth and Vex get to talking in Nature class.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've decided to include a time stamp in this chapter cause i actually was a giant nerd and planned the kids' entire school schedule lmao, lemme know if that's something you're interested in! thank you for your comments, kudos etc, i appreciate it massively

\-- _wednesday, 1st period --_

Keyleth is kneeling in the grass, fingers digging into the dirt, and gently rocks herself backward and forward contently as she absentmindedly listens to Mrs Leozare talk.

The sun is bright in the sky, though it’s early in the morning, sending warmth through the brittle morning air. She can smell the lavender and the heather that’s growing in the back whenever she breathes in deeply, and it feels like a warm shiver running up her spine. Keyleth presses her lips together to suppress her beaming smile to a manageable level.

Because of the lovely weather, Mrs Leozare agreed to have this first lesson of the year outside in the garden, seeing as they do have little foldable chairs in the back of their room just for that purpose, and Keyleth had been out of the door before she’d finished her sentence. This is what she loves most about Nature class; that she gets to be outside and her brain goes just a little quieter. Plants can’t be misinterpreted as easy as people.

Keyleth zones back in to the teacher’s voice for a second. "… make up four teams, and each team is gonna be responsible for one task. You guys can get into four groups by yourselves, and if things aren’t really even, we’ll try and find solutions for that." Some murmurs arise, and Mrs Leozare raises a hand. "Not right now — we’re gonna figure out groups next lesson, probably."

Across the half-circle that the chairs form, Vex is kicking her feet distractedly. Keyleth tilts her head and follows the pattern with her eyes, one-two, one-two, one-two.

"Now, I know that most of you know me from when I used to substitute the past few years, but I do see a few new faces, so let’s go around and say our names, yeah?" There are dark shadows under Miss Leozare’s eyes, and Keyleth is pretty sure that she forgot her cup of coffee in the classroom, which she knows can be a major grievance for adults. "Let’s start with— oh, did you not get a chair?"

Keyleth looks up to find Mrs Leozare looking at her with raised eyebrows. She fixes her eyes on the woman’s chin. "I wanted to sit on the ground", she explains. "’s better like this, right now."

Mrs Leozare frowns slightly before her face relaxes again. "Are you Keyleth, by any chance?" She nods eagerly. "That— alright. Just… maybe get a chair if you get cold at all, dear, okay?"

Keyleth scrunches up her nose as an uncomfortable lurch shoots through her chest at the nickname. Suddenly, her hands are fluttering across her knees, like they’re looking for purchase… but she pushes it down. "Mmh", she manages to say. Her eyes flit over to the pot of lemon balm, to the cucumber planters, and she counts them, one-two-three-four.

Mrs Leozare nods in reply, satisfied. "Alright. So you’re Keyleth. Let’s go through the circle, shall we?"

Keyleth tunes in to the names to distract herself. The group is made up of only around ten kids from all grades; the youngest, by the looks of him, is a first-grader named Simon with dirty blond hair and bright green eyes. He keeps kicking his feet under the chair that is just slightly too big for him, and he avoids eye contact with just about everyone. Keyleth likes him. Wren from her own class is also there, which is good, because she spent a lot of hours last year teaching them to properly tend the plants, and they’ve gotten quite good at it.

Vex, when asked, says her full name — Vex’ahlia Vessar. She nods silently when Mrs Leozare asks whether she’s in fourth grade, and again when asked if she’s new in town, without offering up any other information.

Once they’re done going around the circle, Mrs Leozare claps her hands once. Keyleth and Simon both twitch at the noise. "Wonderful! Now, I’d like for you guys to take a moment, pick up your notebooks, and just walk around the plants for a little while. You can draw them if you want, or you can write down their names if you happen to know what they are."

"I know what they are", Keyleth says, confused. "So does Wren, probably…" But the group has already largely dispersed, kids half walking, half running off, some getting pens and exercise books out of their backpacks.

Keyleth sighs, pulling a small, chewed-on pencil out of her pants pocket and opening her notebook to the next blank page. She’s written _Nature: Fourth Grade_ at the top, in large pretty letters that took her forever to get just right.

"Uh, I’m sorry?" Keyleth turns around to see Vex standing behind her, smiling somewhat awkwardly — not that Keyleth is necessarily the person to say anything about that. She’s got her hair in a tidy, thick braid that Keyleth would never have the patience for, and her blue coat still on despite the relatively mild weather.

"I was wondering — you told me, the other day, about the plants that you have here — and I don’t really know much about them, I don’t know if it’s even allowed to ask for—"

Keyleth finds a little dimple in Vex’ chin and focuses on it. "I can show you around again, if you want", she says softly, because she thinks that’s where the girl is going with this. "It’s okay."

Vex smiles in relief. "That would be lovely."

Keyleth smiles back, stretching out her hand, which Vex takes more out of surprise than anything else."Come on. We’ll start with the flowers."

She does her best not to talk in leaps and bounds about every flower in the garden at once, leading Vex back towards the sunflowers. After a while, they fall into a rhythm of Vex telling her what she knows about the plant in front of them, then Keyleth correcting and adding what she knows herself. The girl takes painstakingly detailed notes, Keyleth realises, looking over her shoulder as Vex sketches the purple blossoms on the bush of heather.

"You don’t have to get it perfect, you know", she says carefully after five minutes of watching Vex draw, erase, draw, erase. "’s just a sketch, and we still have the rest of the garden to go…"

Vex tenses, and Keyleth hurriedly continues, "But it’s okay, we’ve got time!"

"I’m sorry."

"No, it’s okay!" Keyleth drops to the floor and folds her legs underneath her as she opens her exercise book again. "How’d you spell heather again?"

Hesitantly, Vex sits down next to her, her grip tight around the pencil. "H-e-a-t-h-e-r. I’m pretty sure you’ve got it right already, though."

"Awesome." Keyleth wedges her tongue in between her lips and draws a curved line. "What bothers you about those drawings you did before, d’you think?"

"It’s— it’s too bulky, that’s not right."

"Then how’s about…" Keyleth begins sketching tiny circles around the line, one-two-three-four… "Like this? Then you can just— oops, make it as big or small as you want."

Vex follows her lead slowly and carefully, and as a minute passes, Keyleth thinks she feels her relax just a little. She’s fairly sure she knows what Vex felt like, seeing something just be _wrong_ and have it violently twist her stomach, impossible to ignore. And Keyleth can help with that, just like Pike does it for her. Because Vex is nice, and she doesn’t force her to make eye contact like a robot, and she’s careful around the garden.

They don’t get to drawing all of the plants before Mrs Leozare calls them back to the circle; this time, Vex sits next to her, though. When she correctly distinguishes the spearmint, peppermint, and lemon balm from each other, she beams at Keyleth, suddenly stunningly bright even as Mrs Leozare is telling her "good job". Keyleth moves her hands softly, nodding in encouragement.

There’s a warm giddiness sitting somewhere beneath her ribs, and Keyleth begins to rock herself, smiling softly, trying to hold on to it.


	12. chapter 11 - scanlan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scanlan knew from the start Pike was going to do this. Making friends, it's just very her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh, a literal new perspective!! i liked writing from scanlan's pov, he's a smart cookie and an interesting voice. honestly the hardest thing for both him and vax is limiting the amounts of curse words used.  
currently the writing of this is going really really well and i'm excited to put more things out, esp later chapters, so this chapter is a little earlier than planned. let's see if i keep it up. hope you guys enjoy!

_\-- thursday, 2nd period -- _

Scanlan nearly falls off his chair in the middle of English class when Grog suddenly nudges him with his foot, just as he’s tilted back on it in perfect balance. He flails wildly, grabbing on to his desk while his stomach lurches in surprise, and manages to have the chair drop down onto all four legs with a _clunk._

Miss Vysoren turns around from the blackboard, eyebrows furrowed. "What the heee-ck are you doing, Scanlan?" She draws out the vowel just a few milliseconds too long, and a few chuckles arise in the classroom.

"Sorry", he says, trying to make his voice apologetic. "I was tilting."

"Alright then… please stop doing that, I do think your already terrible handwriting wouldn’t benefit if you hit your head." But she’s smirking as she says it. He grins back widely, and she turns back to the blackboard to write.

Scanlan turns. _What the fuck?_, he mouths to Grog, who urgently holds out his open palm with a folded-up piece of paper on it. Scanlan grabs it and unfolds it behind the cover of his pencilcase. It’s a note written in Pike’s loopy handwriting. "Meet by the monkey bars during brake. PASS TO SCANLAN AND KEYLETH!!!"

He leans forward and makes eye contact with Pike. She nods at him encouragingly. Scanlan spreads his arms and gives a wide-eyed shake of the head, trying to communicate _what the hell, Trickfoot, Keyleth is two rows in front of me._ Pike shrugs exaggeratedly and gestures to the front of the classroom, and he assumes she means to say _well, you’re always so awesome, Scanlan, you’ll be able to figure it out 'cause you’re smart and amazing_. He smirks at her.

After considering for a moment, he balls up the note and waits for a moment until Miss Vysoren is looking to the other side of the room as she asks Jarrett a question. He wedges his tongue in between his lips, takes aim, and lobs the paper ball at Keyleth’s head.

She gives a surprised yelp as it hits, and the ball nearly gets caught in her curls before it bounces back and rolls up under the new boy’s desk. He twitches, looking down, and Scanlan grimaces.

Miss Vysoren looks to her, concerned. "Are you alright, Keyleth?" Scanlan can’t see her face, but the girl sweeps her hands over her desk a few times, in that searching, aimless way that she often has about her, leans forward sharply, and says "yes" louder than she needs to.

"Alright…", Miss Vysoren says slowly. "Let me know if anything’s the matter. Jarrett, you were saying?"

Scanlan glances over to Pike, who’s gone red in the face, to Keyleth, who’s half turned in her seat, and then to Vax. The boy waits a few seconds, then surrepticiously shoves a pencil over the edge of his desk, and Scanlan watches as he reaches down and scoops up the ball of paper with the pencil.

He doesn’t look at the paper, doesn’t unfold it, but he doesn’t pass it either. Scanlan attempts to gesture towards him and is met with complete disregard until he gives up, opting to have a very tense exchange of glances with Pike for about a minute.

Then, Miss Vysoren turns back to the blackboard, and sudden movement on Vax’s part has him swivelling his head to him just in time to see the dark-haired boy drop the note in Keyleth’s outstretched hand.

_Interesting._

Keyleth looks as surprised as Pike and Scanlan himself, but she turns back quickly to unfold and read the note. Vax immediately slouches back into his seat, not meeting anyone’s eyes. His sister, though still looking somewhat dazed from her fight with Lyra, looks at him, eyebrows raised, but then refocuses on the lesson.

Scanlan takes up a pencil and begins absent-mindedly scribbling big swooping question marks in his exercise book. Interesting, indeed.

Miss Vysoren continues the lesson without another hitch, though Scanlan finds himself doodling more than listening. It doesn’t matter; he’ll make it up. He fills the margins of his exercise book with comic characters, googly eyes, and bizarre constructions. Some of them appear to be in conversation with others, and he draws speech bubbles for those, but he leaves them empty for now.

Once the bell finally rings, he glances up to see that Miss Vysoren has filled up the board with rules on sentence-building. Scanlan grimaces, scribbles down the heading, and resolves to ask someone for notes later. Among the chatter that erupts in the classroom, he pushes his exercise book and his handful of loose pens into his backpack and, standing up, turns to Pike, who is basically vibrating on her tiptoes with energy.

"So… you couldn’t have just told me those one-and-a-half sentences right now?", he asks, eyebrows raised.

Pike tuts. "Shut up, come on." He mimes locking his mouth and throwing the key away, even though she isn’t looking anymore. Scanlan watches as she kneels by Keyleth’s desk, offering up her hand palm-up. After a moment, Keyleth takes her hand and holds it tightly. Pike helps her up, but Keyleth keeps her eyes glued firmly to the floor.

Scanlan bites his lip. "You okay, Keyleth?" She gives no response, but Pike glances at him with warning in her eyes.

"Should I not have thrown the thing at you?" He tries to catch her gaze, but she keeps evading. "Hey. Keyleth." She shakes her head vehemently and presses herself into Keyleth’s side. He winces. "Okay. I’m real sorry. Won’t do it again. Alright?"

She glances up to his chin. Hesitates. Nods.

He puts on a big grin and holds out his fist. After another moment of hesitation, Keyleth smiles a little and bumps knuckles with him. Both of them mouth _boooom_ simultaneously as their fists separate.

Pike smiles widely, squeezing Keyleth’s hand encouragingly. "Alright!", she says merrily. "Come on, Grog, we’re goin’!" When Grog walks past, he grabs Keyleth’s backpack from her hand in one easy gesture and swings it over his shoulder. The girl smiles towards the ground.

The four of them make their way through the halls, out of the building, and over to the monkey bars. Pike sprints all the way from the front doors in order to claim them from a couple of cocky third-graders for the group. "…we were here first!", Scanlan hears one of them say, frustrated, and Pike brightly replies, "well I was at this school first, so I think I still win?"

"We’ll be off the bars in ten minutes", Scanlan says, making a shooing motion with his hands that he knows looks hilarious paired with his tiny, tiny body. It works, though, and only maybe partly because of Grog pulling a mean face behind Scanlan’s back.

Keyleth immediately scrambles up onto one of the bars to hang upside down, her hair sweeping over the ground. Pike and Scanlan both opt for just sitting and balancing on the bars, and Grog puts his hands on the highest of the monkey bars, pulls in his knees, and tries to swing back and forth.

"Right", Scanlan says with a sigh. "So what’s with the get-together, Pikey?"

Pike breathes in deeply. "I think we should make friends with the new kids. The twins."

Silence follows. Then Grog says, "Alright."

"And?", Scanlan prods.

Pike stares at them. "That’s… it."

"That’s why I nearly knocked my skull open?", Scanlan says incredulously.

"Hey, I would’ve caught you", Grog murmurs sullenly.

"But that’s the entire plan?!"

Pike sputters. "I mean, till now, yeah!"

"Well, we knew _that!_", Grog says, confusion evident in his voice. "Ya make friends with everyone, and they’re the shiny new kids!"

"Hey!" Pike looks genuinely insulted.

"Not like that", Scanlan interrupts. "He just means — I mean, as soon as Vex was sent to time-out, we _all _knew you were gonna swoop in and-"

"Try and make it better", Grog finishes. Scanlan nods in confirmation, even though Pike huffs in protest. "’s is just a thing you do!"

Pike opens and closes her mouth a few times, puts her hands to her hips, tries to resist a smile spreading across her face. "Well, if I’m so obvious — are you okay with this? Keyleth?" She turns to the girl, still hanging upside down from the monkey bars.

Keyleth doesn’t smile as her bright red hair trails across the dirt, but she replies, "Vex is nice, I think. But I don’t… I don’t think I understand what her brother’s deal is. Isn’t he rude?"

"Well, he is, a little bit", Pike admits, "but he’s just being like that 'cause he’s new here and he doesn’t know anyone! I think. Like, Grog, when you get into a new class, you get angry at people quicker, right?"

Grog shrugs uncomfortably. "S’pose."

Pike nods encouragingly. "And when you make friends who keep you safe, and who like you, doesn’t that make it a lot better to be there?"

"I mean…" Grog looks strangely helpless in the face of attention, with all three of them looking at him at the same time. "That hasn’t really… happened, a bunch? Outside of you, Pike, and then you just kind of pulled me in, and then," he gestures around to Scanlan and Keyleth, "_we_ were friends, too, all of a sudden."

"See!" Pike leans against Grog, lightly hugging him sideways. "They just need to make friends. And I bet they’ll be lovely then."

Scanlan shrugs. "I mean, I’m with you guys, but I don’t wanna try and be friends with an asshole." Pike frowns severely at him, but he continues, "so, adjustment problems are fine and good, but if he doesn’t turn out nice then I’m out."

"Fair", Grog agrees. Keyleth continues swinging, but she gives an upside-down nod that briefly sends Grog into a visible bout of confusion.

Pike smiles triumphantly. "So how are we gonna do this, guys?"


	13. chapter 12 - vax

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The twins slowly settle into school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyo, i promise this story has a path, i'm Getting Somewhere by the end of this part! i really like writing the kids getting to know each other, tho.  
just fyi, for personal reasons i might not be uploading on time next week, but I'll do my best lol  
thank you for all comments and/or kudos, i massively appreciate it!

_\-- friday morning --_

"We’re gonna be late, Vax, come on!"

He breathes out loudly through his nose, calling over his shoulder, "One second!" Bent down over his desk, Vax eyes his open French homework with significant distrust. It’s three pages of verb conjugation, a thoroughly boring task that he has, so far, finished by two-thirds, and not very carefully at that.

The door to his room opens, and Vax snatches up the exercise book and hides it behind his back as he turns. His sister is standing in the doorway, frowning at him as she is finishing her braid. "What’s the matter?"

"Nothing! I couldn’t find my socks", he improvises.

"Well, then come on now, we’re supposed to be downstairs by seven-ten." Vex tilts her head curiously. "Are you holding something behind your back?"

Vax shakes his head and moves casually towards his backpack. "No."

A smile spreads on Vex’s face as she slowly steps forward. "You’re lying. What do you have?"

Vax presses his lips together and doesn’t answer. They hold each other’s gaze for a solid five seconds before Vex darts towards him, pulling an indignant squeak from him. Vax is reduced to a giggling, squirming mess as Vex very matter-of-factly hits his weak spots until he’s forced to use his hands to try and deflect her, giving her the opportunity to pull the exercise book from his hands.

They fall to the ground in the process, Vax halfway underneath the desk as Vex skips over to the bed to look at her bounty. "You’re a menace", he informs her as he sits up with as much dignity as he can muster.

Vex looks up from the exercise book. "This is due _today!_"

"It’s not like it’s school", Vax grumbles, getting to his feet and pulling his exercise book from his sister’s hands. She relinquishes it. "It’s just Dad’s dumb tutoring guy that wanted this."

"I’m not gonna let you copy off of me."

"I didn’t ask you to!"

"Alright then!" Vex gets up off the bed and stomps towards the door. "See you downstairs, I guess."

Vax hesitates, then snatches up his backpack and runs after her. Slinging an arm over her shoulder, he puts her in a headlock and ruffles her hair with his knuckles. "Sorry, stubby", he says quietly as he lets her go, her face red and indignant, but softening as she looks at him. "I’ll be better."

She sighs. "Wait here, I’ll get my stuff."

Once they’ve trudged down the stairs, breakfast is a fairly silent occasion, especially when disregarding their father’s expressions of criticism (in order: them being late, the state of the twins’ hair, Vax’s clothes, the way they hold their cutlery, Vax not eating his breakfast egg because the white is still all jelly-like and objectively gross). The only thing that keeps Vax from shooting back is what he said to Vex earlier.

They leave their Extra-French books, as Vax thinks of them, in the kitchen for being checked and corrected in the afternoon, and climb into the car. At least, Syldor doesn’t deign speak to them again during the drive.

Getting out of the car, Vax slings his backpack and gym bag over his shoulder. He looks towards the school building as Vex grabs her own things from the trunk of the car, which then squeals off into the distance.

"What does he even do all day?", Vax asks conversationally while Vex wrestles with her twisted backpack straps. "A _diplomat_. I reckon it’s… office work, I guess?"

"Yeah." A pause as Vex grabs his hand, more out of habit now than for concrete comfort, but he squeezes her hand back anyway. "Maybe telephone calls?"

"Putting signatures on things." Vex hums, considering, and begins pulling him gently forward into the schoolyard. They’re not late, as much as Syldor claimed they would be; the yard is still full of kids and the rumble of their voices. He scans the place for any face he recognises — the Trickfoot gaggle from their class, specifically. For now, he doesn’t spot any of the four.

"D’you have your maths stuff with you?", Vax asks, knowing full well that his sister meticulously packed and checked her bag the night before. "You’re gonna kick that Lyra girl’s butt at Maths today, I know it." At Vex’s half-hearted glare, he shrugs exasperatedly. "_Butt_ is not a damn bad word, Vex’ahlia!"

She smiles despite herself. "She’s just smarter than me. That’s okay."

That doesn’t even merit a proper response, so Vax blows a raspberry and says dismissively, "That’s bullshit."

"Hey now!"

"Sorry, mum. But I’m serious, you just got unlucky in English. If you weren’t already a big old smartypants, you wouldn’t even have gotten into that fight." He shrugs. "Quad the-rat demons-trade-doom."

Vex looks at him with a very odd face. "Excuse me?"

"You know, that thing old Hennis used to say when he said something real smart. To prove something."

"I don’t think…"

The bell interrupts her, loud and sudden enough to make Vax jump in the air about three feet, and he only suppresses a swear because he’s used up his allowance for the hour. Vex chortles, though she at least has the decency to swallow her laughter quickly. "Okay. Don’t fight with anyone, yeah?"

Vax nods severely. "And you don’t turn into some mole person." She rolls her eyes with a smile before turning around and running off towards the main building. Despite his big talk, Vax memorised both of their schedules the day after they got them; Vex has Nature, now, and he’s in Athletics.

Vax looks around for a second, feigning vague confusion about where to go until the portal doors shut behind his sister. Then, he slings his gym bag over his shoulder and trods off towards the gym. He’s met the teacher for this subject before, because she also teaches P.E., which he understands to be the basic version of what he is supposed to do in Athletics.

So he also knows that he can’t help but be reluctantly impressed by the teacher, Miss de Vord, or Miss Kima, as she’s offered them. The woman is small — Grog, the biggest kid in the class, is already nearly as tall as her — but incredibly stout, and she keeps the class in control with ease. At this point, Vax is not sure whether he _likes_ her, per se.

Not that he _likes_ absolutely anything about this place. He sets his jaw.

The changing rooms in the gym have little cubicles for them to keep their things in, but Vax runs across Jarett-with-the-accent from class who tells him that they’re supposed to gather in the actual gym area by second bell. He changes into his gym clothes as fast as possible, but nevertheless, he’s still putting on his first shoe when second bell rings.

About a minute later, Vax finally sprints out of the changing rooms and bursts into the gym proper. Immediately, the entire gaggle of kids turns their heads. Miss de Vord is stood in the middle of the circle, taller than he remembers. He frowns instinctively.

"Well hello, young Vax’ildan", Miss de Vord intones drily. "I’m not happy to be doin’ sports on a Friday morning either, but there’s no reason to make that kinda face." Vax quickly schools his features. "A little more punctual next time, if you please, or I might make you run a few laps."

"Sorry", Vax murmurs, stepping up to the circle. Closer up, he can now see that Miss de Vord, with all of her shoulder-wide stance and folded arms, is standing on a large box. The sight is so incredible that a grin spreads over his face before he can help himself.

Miss de Vord smirks. "That’s a better face. Alright, guys, now that we’re complete — we saw on Wednesday, we’re a pretty mixed group this year. Just so you’re aware, we’ll take that into account if you guys need partners for anything. In other words, you tiny ones over there", she gestures to the lower grade students, "don’t have to worry about Grog tossin’ you around." Some sounds of relief are audible. Vax looks over to the tall boy, who grins sheepishly and waves to the smaller children in an obvious attempt to seem as harmless and friendly as possible.

That’s interesting. Vax frowns. He had not exactly pegged the guy as a bully, but… still.

"We’re gonna start with something entirely different, though." Miss de Vord claps once, loudly. "Parkour! What do you know 'bout it?"


	14. chapter 13 - grog

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyo here i go with another new pov!! super insecure about this, i don't think i got the voice down right, but this is a learning project as well. as predicted, didn't get the chapter out on time, but that's how it be and i hope to get back on schedule after this one. hope y'all enjoy!

_\-- friday, 1st period -- _

****"I’ll have you guys pair up to spot each other for some o’ this. Please be careful, but you can also try and be faster with each go-around if you wanna. Most of all, be creative when you try to get over these obstacles." Miss Kima raises a finger in warning. "Do not rush each other; you either wait till the other team is finished or you skip the station. Got it?" Everyone rumbles in agreement.

"Alright. I’m gonna call out teams, 'cause we’re not gonna get anything done otherwise. Cassandra and Henry, you’re one…" She keeps going, setting most everyone up with people from their grade. Grog bounces from his left foot to his right. "Stormherd the Younger, where are you? There. You’re with Tommen. And Stormherd the Elder… you’re with- new kid, what’s your name again? Vax’ildan Vessar, right?"

"Just Vax’ildan", the dark-haired boy next to Grog says glumly. He glares at Grog out of the corner of his eye; Grog gives a wide grin back. Pike wants to become friends with him, after all, so he’s decided already to be nice.

Miss Kima has the class run a few laps to warm up as she opens the storage rooms next to the gym and sets up a kind of obstacle course out of cushioned mats and blocks, springboards, hula-hoop rings, and several rows of monkey bars. Grog runs in pace with Jarrett, happily chatting about what they’re going to be doing, and does he think they’re gonna be allowed to _jump over things_?

Grog listens to Miss Kima explain the obstacle course as well as he can, though every movement of anyone in the class circle tends to distract him, and he bounces on the balls of his feet. He want’s to _go_, he wants to _do_, and the springboard looks _exciting_ and he’ll be allowed to throw himself full-body on the mat which will be _so cool_ —

The teams spread out over the gym; Vax looks around, then strolls over to the monkey bars. Grog lets him lead the way, because he seems tense, and maybe if he lets him decide, he’ll calm down a little. Internally, he claps himself on the shoulder for that thought. Pike always makes him think he can do things, like be nice to a kid he doesn’t know, or pass a test, or make good first impressions; but Pike isn’t here. He steels himself.

"By the way", Grog says hesitantly as they line up next to the monkey bars, "you know, I really din’t mean to knock down your sister, the other day, yeah? I just kinda ran, and then she was there — and she _really_ doesn’t weigh a bunch, I don’ think, not that tha’s a bad thing —"

Vax turns to him, eyes dark. "You should look where you’re going, then. And I hope you’re not implying my sister’s weak." Miss Kima blows a whistle, and before Grog can reply, Vax has clambered up the monkey bar construction and is moving across the top of them on all fours.

Grog worries his lower lip as he walks alongside Vax. He used the wrong words again. He didn’t mean that the girl was weak; she didn’t cry or scream out, which was pretty cool, and she didn’t tell on him, which was cooler. So she’s not weak at all; he really just wanted to say sorry.

Setting his feet and hands, Vax seems remarkably secure, down to the way the tip of his tongue sticks out from between his lips in concentration. The boy drops to the ground on the other end, then trots back to the other side with Grog.

"I’m no’ sayin’ that at all", Grog says defensively as he hoists himself up. "Look, I’m sayin’—" He begins swinging himself from bar to bar, legs dangling, knees bent. "It - was - an - accident, whoop - and I - din’t mean to!" With a bit of a leap, he drops to the floor, catching his weight easily. "So I think it would be nice if you stopped holdin’ it over my nose."

"_Under_ your nose."

"Why would you hold anythin’ _under_ my nose?"

"Move along, Vessar, Stormherd!" Miss Kima’s voice rings from across the hall.

Grog starts half-trotting, half-jogging over to the next station, but he doesn’t miss Vax’ grimace at the last name and his grumbled "that’s not my name". There’s several sets of ladders set up, slightly staggered, secured to the floor. Within leaping distance, Grog is pretty sure…

"Up and over to the next, I guess", Vax says, rubbing his hands. He hesitates, then sends a look over to Grog, an eyebrow cocked. "You could count my time, try and beat it?"

Grog hesitates. "I mean. Sure, but, like — I’m not too good at countin’, to be honest."

Vax raises his eyebrows, a little surprised, a little amused. "In fourth grade? Really?"

Grog’s face automatically twists a little; he doesn’t like the amusement, doesn’t _like_ it. He knows he’s not smart, but other people don’t have to laugh about it. Pike never does. "Yeah. Really."

Vax looks at him for a second, considering. Then he shrugs. "So you’d rather we leave it, that’s fine. But I’ll be counting in my head, anyways."

Throughout the next hour, Grog discovers that parkour is absolutely _awesome. _Vax and he fall over each other trying to find the quickest ways over each obstacle, points to jump over things. Grog falls, once, but he manages to roll off and catch himself, and when he gets up, Vax is looking at him almost like he’s… impressed. Grog raises his chin a little, proud.

By the time Miss Kima calls them to gather back up in the middle of the gym, Grog is slightly out of breath and grinning widely as he and Vax walk up to the group of kids. Jarrett lightly hits his upper arm to get his attention, loudly whispering, "that was _so cool_!"

"How’d you do the mats-are-lava thing?", Grog asks excitedly. Jarrett frowns in confusion, but before Grog can clarify, Vax is already speaking.

"The one where you had to get to the other side and couldn’t touch the mat. We tried just jumping over for-_ever,_ and I couldn’t get it."

Jarrett lights up. "Tony gave me a boost, that did it quite well!"

"Vax did, like, a leap and a roll—" But Grog is interrupted mid-sentence by Miss Kima, who claps her hands once in the middle of their circle.

"Alright, guys, I’ll get in trouble again if I don’t let you out in time for the break", she calls loudly, getting the group’s attention. "So real quick…"

"Hey", Grog hears someone whisper to his vague left— no, right, where Vax is standing. One of the sixth-graders has found his way over and is standing behind the dark-haired boy; lanky, maybe half a head shorter than Grog, light blonde hair falling straight down to his ears. Constantin is his name, maybe; Grog isn’t quite sure. "Are you the Vessar boy?"

Vax narrows his eyes and turns half-way around. "It’s Vax’ildan."

"So that’s a yes?" Constantin looks Vax up and down, one eyebrow raised. "Well, I thought you’d be more… polished. Your father took you in, didn’t he?"

Grog strategically moves himself closer to Vax’s side as all of the blood seems to rush straight out of the boy’s head. "No figh’in’", he murmurs, alarmed. Miss Kima is one of the very few people who don’t single him out as an automatic danger in every class, and he doesn’t want a fight to break out next to him right now—

"Milier, Strongjaw, Vessar!" Vax and Grog twitch at the same time and look up to see Miss Kima look at them, brows furrowed. "Two more minutes in class, then you can chitter like old ladies down by the river."

"It’s Vax’ildan", Vax nearly growls next to him, though under-his-breath enough for no one outside the three of them to hear. Grog briefly considers nudging him in the side with his elbow, but that would probably not be a good idea, not at all, considering how the boy has his fists clenched by his sides. Grog isn’t sure what made him so mad — Constantin isn’t the nicest, but still…

"This school is nothing like Syngorn’s, but it’s pretty alright", Constantin continues, still quietly murmuring, but otherwise uncaring about the admonishment. "I can show you around later, or you can come over — my mother works with your father, you know, and—"

"Hey, shut up", Grog says. Loudly. Miss Kima pauses and looks over to them, frowning, but Grog just keeps glaring at Constantin. The boy glares back, green eyes narrowed in confusion and irritation.

Miss Kima sighs. "Alright, Milier, I’d say make your way over to the other side of the circle, but we’re done here anyway. But…" She makes the eyes-on-you gesture; Constantin scrunches up his nose, then nods curtly.

Grog looks over to Vax as she tells them to go off to change and get outside, some of the kids already turning to leave. The boy is standing still, but so _tense — _jaw clenched, all straight-backed, like a spring before it goes off, staring at a point on the opposite wall. Grog worries his lower lip.

Once Constantin’s turned away, he turns to Vax, steps in front of him, into his field of vision. Vax’s eyes snap up to his face immediately, hardened hazel. "Alrigh’", Grog says in a low voice; he licks his lips once, nervously. "So… you’re pretty mad right now, yeah?"

"Seems so", Vax replies, clipped.

"Right—right." Grog nods. "So—y’know, I get pretty mad sometimes, too, but they get _really_ upset here if you hit someone, and like, it’s still your first week and all, that’s not great to start something—and my best friend Pike, see, she says that—"

"What’s your point?"

"Right. Right." Grog clears his throat. "Would it be okay if we went over to Mr Trickfoot’s office? Just for a lil’ bit?"

Vax eyes him for a moment, and Grog does his best to put on a nice face. "He’ll let you punch a pillow, if you want", he adds, helpfully.

Finally, Vax nods. Hesitant and reserved, but it’s still a nod. Grog smiles broadly. "A’ight! Off with us!"


	15. chapter 14 - vex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Keyleth gets overwhelmed in class, a few of the kids gather in Mr Trickfoot's office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyooo i'm not as far ahead with the writing anymore as i would like, but such is life. hope u enjoy!
> 
> content notes: medium autistic meltdown, anxiety attacks

It happens in the space of a few seconds, really. One second, Keyleth is showing Vex and a first-grader called Simon how to prune the lavender plants; the next, a kid gives a delighted shrieking noise from the opposite corner of the garden, and Keyleth twitches violently. Vex looks up at her in surprise.

"A _frog_! Mrs Leozare, we found a _frog_!" — "Eww, it’s so _slimy_, look at it!" — "Look, it’s gonna _jump _—"

Keyleth gives a low moan, pressing her hands to her ears, eyes widened anxiously. Vex moves towards her at the same time that Simon yelps with joy and darts over to the frog-watchers. The den of excited chatter maintains, gets louder, and Vex watches Keyleth slowly sink to the ground.

"What’s the matter?", she asks, alarmed. "Keyleth, what’s going on?"

Mrs Leozare looks over to them at this point and rushes over. "She’s just overwhelmed — Vex’ahlia, can you get her to Mr Trickfoot’s office? I need to stay here with the others."

Vex nods quickly as she stares at Keyleth, rocking herself backwards and forwards, her arms wrapped around herself. Then, she shakes herself into action. "Keyleth, can you get up, please?", she tries, feeling slightly ridiculous, slightly nervous, slightly helpless. "We just need to go a few steps —"

It takes nearly two minutes to complete the fifty-meter walk, but they slowly manage to walk to the counsellor’s office. The bell rings in the meantime. Vex tries to hold Keyleth, at one point, to put an arm around her, but the girl twitches away immediately, her wordless sounds suddenly more desperate. "Okay! Okay!" Vex steps back immediately, raises her hands. "I’m sorry, Keyleth, it’s okay…"

Vex doesn’t want to admit it, but by the time they arrive at the laminated drawing of the angel hanging on the door, she’s biting back tears, even though that makes no sense because Keyleth is the one who’s upset, and she has to take care of her, doesn’t she? She raises a hand and surprises herself by slamming her fist against the door, one-two-three times, but before anyone can even answer, Keyleth grabs for the doorhandle, stumbling past her into the room. "Hey, wait—"

"Keyleth, what’s up?" Cheerful, roughly accented — Vex makes the connection a millisecond before she sees Grog sitting on the couch, holding a gameboy, smiling widely at Keyleth, though his expression is already turning into one of concern. "Are you okay?"

"Vex? What’s going on?"

Vex feels her heart drop into the pit of her stomach. "Vax!"

"Alright, let’s quiet down, everyone." This, finally, is Pike’s grandad’s voice, croaky but resolute. Vex’ head whips around. Mr Trickfoot is shuffling out of his adjacent office room, his long grey hair tied back in a bun that Vex would hide a snicker about, were it not for the fact that Keyleth is leaning against the wall next to her, hunched in on herself, whining quietly, and the secondary fact that her brother is in the counsellor’s office and she doesn’t know why.

"Vex’ahlia, it’s nice to see you again, dear", Mr Trickfoot continues, hobbling forward with a smile towards her. "How’s that knee of yours?"

"It’s mostly healed up", she replies automatically, "thank you, sir."

"Would you be so good and get young Keyleth here a glass of water from my office? There’s a fountain there, and a little cabinet directly above it." Vex nods mutely. "Fantastic. Hello, Keyleth — there you are, there you are. Grog, put that gameboy on silent." As Vex moves past the couch, and Grog moves to comply, she shares a look with her brother. _I’m alright_, Vax’ eyes say. _You? _She nods minutely, hurrying into the office.

By the time she returns to the main room, Vax and Grog have scooted over to one end of the couch, bent over the gameboy in silent concentration. Mr Trickfoot has succeeded in maneuvering Keyleth into the large armchair; she’s curled up small, knees drawn to her chest, wide green eyes darting about the room and breathing in long shaky gasps. She doesn’t make eye contact with Vex as she puts the glass down on the table, careful not to make a noise; but then again, when she thinks about it, Vex doesn’t think she’s ever seen the girl make eye contact before.

"Thank you, dear", Mr Trickfoot says in a near-whisper, gesturing for her to sit down on the couch by Grog. She obliges, but continues watching Mr Trickfoot as he crouches down by the chair. "Okay, Keyleth, what do you want? Ears?" Vex raises her eyebrows, but Keyleth gives a frantic nod. "Alright. Eyes?" An equally frantic shake of the head. "Blanket?" Another nod.

While Mr Trickfoot rummages around the room for a few seconds, Vax clambers up onto the back of the couch so he’s able to both watch Grog’s gameboy and dangle his socked foot over Vex’ shoulder. She scoffs at him, but with a smile, and she finds herself finally taking a deep breath as she leans back.

Mr Trickfoot offers Keyleth a set of large headphones, which she grasps and puts on without a word, and a big blue blanket that Vex is sure must be large enough to wrap her in. Keyleth closes her eyes as Mr Trickfoot tucks the blanket around her, shivering. Vex might be imagining it, but it seems like part of the tension just… bleeds out of her body with the next exhale.

Mr Trickfoot sighs, then turns around. "Alright, you kids", he says, his voice still a mere whisper. "You can stay right here, but no loud noises and no startling our little red-head, you understand?"

"Mr Trickfoot, what’s going on with Keyleth?", Vex asks, likewise in a whisper.

"I suppose how you could say it is… she gets very overwhelmed with the world sometimes", he explains quietly. "Sometimes there’s certain sounds or other things that, to her, feel like… that screeching sound of chalk on a chalkboard."

"Oof, that’s nasty", Grog murmurs, then lists dramatically to the side, eyes still fixed on the gameboy. "Aw, _shit_—"

"She just needs a little time for the world to get manageable again", Mr Trickfoot continues as he sits down on the opposite couch, without reprimanding Grog for language, Vex notices with some surprise. "You did a very good job getting her here, Vex’ahlia."

"Thank you", she murmurs, though she doesn’t really know what it was she did.

"You gotta go around the corner there", Vax suddenly whispers, kicking her in the ribs a little as he leans forward to point at the gameboy in Grog's hands. "The guy’s gonna get you— oh, there you _go_, I tried to warn you."

"Well you do better, then!"

"Gimme the gameboy, and I will!"

"Shut _up_", Vex hisses. "You’re gonna wake her—"

She glances over to Keyleth only to find the girl’s eyes already open, watching her and the boys with tired curiosity. Vex gives a little wave of the hand to get her attention, then smiles at her. Keyleth returns the smile, buried under the blanket as she is.

Vex makes a questioning face and shows her a thumbs-up, thumb-to-the-side, thumbs-down. One of Keyleth’s hands snakes out from under the blanket to replicate the thumbs-up.

For a second, Vex hesitates; then, she motions with her head towards the two boys, who have by now settled back into their game. She rolls her eyes exaggeratedly and swirls her index finger in the air by the side of her head. Keyleth actually grins at that, and the still-visible hand goes into familiar motion as it flaps softly by her side.

"_Fuck_", Vax swears, and at this, Mr Trickfoot does give a tutting sound from the opposite sofa. "This is harder than it looks."

Vex groans under her breath and grabs for the gameboy. Vax relinquishes it with some reluctance, but Grog nudges him, whispering, "let 'er try, we gotta get to the next level at some point."

"Listen to the big boy", Vex says absently, leaning into her brother as she evades what she thinks are supposed to be monsters of some kind. "Why do these things — ah — look like living cleaning mops?"

"They’re ghosts!", Grog protests as Vax snorts. "Obviously!"

"That’s a stretch", Vex murmurs, quickly evading another monster. "_Ha_!"

"Careful, you almost got it", Vax says, more or less right into her ear, making her shrink away. "There’s still some in the top right corner, up there—"

"Stop that, you’re breathing in my ear!", she hisses, but she does navigate the little five-sixths circle upwards. "Come on, come on — _yes_!" Vex pumps her arms, nearly knocking her brother off the back of the couch.

Grog grabs her shoulder, shaking her excitedly. "_Yeah_, that’s awesome!"

Vex grins despite herself, once she’s recovered from the shock of sudden bodily contact. "Don’t shake me, I have to keep going!"

"You’ve got this", Vax murmurs, and Grog echoes him quietly. "You’ve got this…"


	16. chapter 15 - pike

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A first gathering of (nearly) the entire gang in Mr Trickfoot's office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> good day! i meant to upload this yesterday but what's a gay to do when they get home from a date late at night and just collapse into bed instantly. i'm not entirely happy with the ending, i actually rewrote it right before uploading, but oh well, it's gonna be fine. i've been really enjoying reading all the comments, i appreciate it loads <3 hope you enjoy this new chapter!

"You checked the playground?"

"I did."

"And they’re not there?"

"Pike, you gotta relax, really." Scanlan reaches up to put his hand on her shoulder, presumably to keep her from lifting off the ground like a helicopter as she nervously bounces on the balls of her feet. "They’re probably back in the garden, you know Keyleth can never tear herself away from those plant-y things."

"You could just call them plants, you know." Pike makes a decisive gesture with her arms. "Alright. Let’s check the garden." Scanlan sighs.

They sneak their way inside the main building when Mr Dranzel, today’s break-time supervisor, isn’t looking, and tiptoe through a few corridors until they reach the storage room that leads into the garden. Scanlan opens the door, Pike behind him.

She walks right into him as he stops in the middle of the doorway. "What—"

"Mrs Leozare", Scanlan says with exaggerated amounts of cheeriness. "Heeey!"

Pike peeks around Scanlan to see the teacher look at them in exasperation. "Hi", she says meekly.

"You know the rules, guys", Mrs Leozare says with a mild smile. "Breaks are spent outside unless the weather’s _really_ awful. And I spent the past one and a half hours in the garden, it’s nice and sunny." She twirls a finger in the air. "Back the way you came, if you please."

"Mrs Leozare, we’re really just looking for Keyleth, " Pike says rapidly. "I know she’s in Nature, and I couldn’t find her in the yard—"

Mrs Leozare’s face clears up a little, and she nods. "She had one of her episodes, as far as I understood. I sent her to Mr Trickfoot’s office to calm down."

Scanlan and Pike look at each other. "Did she go alone?", Pike asks hesitantly.

"And, Mrs L, no offense, but Keyleth doesn’t like for people to say she has _episodes_", Scanlan adds, eyes narrowed. "That sounds like she’s sick, and she’s not sick, you know?"

Mrs Leozare frowns. "I… don’t think that’s for you to concern yourself with, Scanlan. But no, I sent Vex’ahlia to accompany her to the office."

"How’s it not my concern—"

"Thank you, that helps, Mrs L", Pike chirps, grabs Scanlans hand, and pulls him out of the room. "Come on", she whispers to him, breaking into a jog. "You’re right, but she’s not gonna listen right now. I’ll get Granpa to talk to her about it."

"Yeah, 'cause adults can solve every problem."

She scowls at him as she raises her hand to knock rapidly on the door to the office. "Granpa?", she calls as she opens the door. "Is Keyleth—"

"_Shshshshsh!_"

Pike freezes more out of surprise than anything else. There’s three people huddled on the big couch that she can see, and none of them are Keyleth. Her eyes dart around — Grog, of course, but then she sees the twins, and the boy — Vax, she remembers — is _smiling. _And that is just unheard of.

"Keyleth’s over there, she’s napping, I think", Grog whispers, waving them over. As she comes closer, Pike spots the red-headed girl curled up in the armchair, headphones on and weighted blanket spread over her, facing away from the room.

She bites her lip anxiously. "Is she okay?", she whispers. "Was it bad?"

"Nah, I would’a gotten you in an emergency", Grog replies quietly. "Just—"

Keyleth sighs quietly, silencing Grog, and shuffles to turn around without getting up from her little ball in the armchair. Blinking sleepily, she smiles at Pike when she spots her.

"Hey, red", Pike says quietly, giving a small wave. "Can I sit with you?" As she speaks, she gestures exaggeratedly so Keyleth knows what she is asking even with the noise-cancelling headphones. The girl nods, and Pike walks over to perch on the armrest, hand outstretched for Keyleth to hold if she wants to.

"Whoa, what the hell?" Scanlan has walked over to the other three who are, as Pike now notices, huddled around the gameboy that her and Grog share. "Who beat my high score?"

Vax reaches out and drums a silent rhythm on his sister’s shoulders. "That’d be Stubby. She’s _amazing_, got past two levels without dying at all." He’s energetic, bouncing his leg, grinning widely — in class, he’s so much more quiet. His entire body language at this moment is so vastly different than usual that Pike finds herself fascinated.

"That’s pretty good", Scanlan says appreciatively. Vex looks up quickly, giving a flash of a smile before focusing back on the screen. "You have one of your own?"

Before the girl can reply, Vax snorts. "Yeah, right."

Vex curses, though mildly and in a low voice, and puts the gameboy to her side. Pike doesn’t miss that she sharply elbows her brother in the shin in the same movement. "I’ve not played before, no", she says to Scanlan. "But I’ve seen how it works. It’s really quite easy, once you know the basics."

Scanlan frowns and turns to Grog. "If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was insulting our intelligence."

Pike indignantly says, "what about my intelligence?" in the same moment that Grog says, "wait, why?"

Vax looks at him with a raised eyebrow, but doesn’t say anything, while Vex hurries to apologise before Scanlan waves her off. "I was joking. I do that sometimes."

"Oh", Vex says quietly, shrinking back into the sofa a little. "Sorry."

"Bell’s gonna ring any second now", Pike says softly, tapping the armchair to get Keyleth’s attention and pointing to the big clock on the wall. "Where’s Granpa?"

"Went to make some tea", Vax says. "Hey, is he really your grandpa, or do you just call him that?"

"No, he’s really my granpa. We live with him, Grog and I." Pike tilts her head curiously. "Who calls someone their grandpa if they’re not really their grandpa?"

He shrugs. "People back home. Like… ’grandfather, did you see the twins around?’, and then old man Hennis rats us out in hide-and-seek." Pike half-giggles, half-chortles.

"It was the same with old women, too", Vex says, half-smiling. "We had a neighbour who would take care of us when Mum was out, Grandmother Brenton…"

"Where’s home?", asks a small voice. Keyleth has pushed her headphones down to around her neck, though she’s still curled up under the blanket.

It’s an immediate switch in Vax’ entire demeanor as soon as she says that; Pike basically observes all the little changes as they happen. He leans back, folds his arms, slouches down in one quick movement, and his expression becomes instantly guarded. "Small town."

"That’s not a where."

There is a beat of silence, wherein Vex tenses minutely, and Vax narrows his eyes, and Pike is half afraid he’s gonna snap at Keyleth. But he merely replies, albeit brusquely, "Byroden."

Before anyone can reply, the bell rings, startling everyone. Keyleth moans quietly, but she doesn’t put the headphones back on. Vax gets down from the back of the couch quickly and heads for the door wordlessly. Behind him, the door slams shut.

"He doesn’t like to talk about home", Vex says quietly. Her hands are folded tightly together in her lap, and she looks even more like her brother like this — all tensed into herself, ready to jump. Her mouth moves, looking for words. "It’s… we’ve only been here for two weeks."

"But you’re with your dad, at least, right?" Pike asks softly. "I see him pick you up, like, every day."

Vex gives a noise — a snort, almost. It’s so unlike her that Scanlan raises his eyebrows with something akin to respect. "Don’t."

"So he’s an ass?", Scanlan says.

"I said _don’t_." Her voice is sharp now, and Scanlan raises his hands in concession.

Vex presses her lips together in a tight line and stands up from the couch. "I’m going to look for my brother", she says, clipped. "See you upstairs."

"We didn’t mean anything by it", Pike says quickly, apologetically, getting up, though Vex is already almost at the door.

The girl pauses with her hand on the doorknob. "I know that." Then she’s out of the door. It shuts softly, this time.

Pike breathes out slowly while Keyleth unwraps herself from her blanket. Grog looks around, confused. "Did we do somethin’ wrong?"

Scanlan is already shaking his head before Grog finishes the sentence. "I don’t think so", he replies with a shrug. "It just got a little much for them to be talking about home."

Grog nods slowly. "Okay, so what do we do now?"

"We gotta go to class", Keyleth interjects quietly.

"That’s true, actually." Pike sighs again, then makes a decisive gesture. "Let’s go, guys."

As they make their way up into the higher-grades corridor, though, and she thinks about Vax’ broad smiles and constant leg-twitching that he didn’t try to suppress, and Vex’ wry jokes and the faces she pulled to make Keyleth laugh, Pike can't help but feel tentatively hopeful.


	17. chapter 16 - vax

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vax misses home, and it's not getting better - at least, not like this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've been couch-bound and fevery for a damn half-week now, which is also why i've forgotten about uploading Again, i beg forgiveness. but have the longest chapter yet for ur troubles, cause this one's sitting pretty at 2.3k!! and i like it a lot. hope you do too. let me know if u do or not! enjoy!

Vax doesn’t leave quickly, barely even runs. His feet only carry him around the corner into a smaller nook of a coridor, secluded from view if he crouches down in front of the doors to what looks to be a storage closet. Putting his back against the wall, he slides down to the ground soundlessly, and quietly breathes out against the pain underneath his ribs.

He buries his face in his arms. _Small town… Byroden. _The worst thing, he thinks as vague nausea creeps up through him, is that he didn’t even notice it until they’d both already _said_ things about home — had already given some of it away.

"There you are", Vex’ voice says quietly. "Thought you’d be outside, honestly."

"It’s about to be second bell", he whispers. "Go to class."

"No." He hears her huff slightly as she settles down on the ground. "I miss home, too."

"I hate it here." Vax doesn’t lift his head, just speaks into the muffle of his sweater. "I want to go back to Mum. We should have run away so Dad couldn’t have found us, spent a year in the woods, and then we could’ve come home."

"Vax, be serious."

"I am. Mum could’ve helped us, and we could’ve learned to hunt—"

"Mum was working all day, do you really think she could’ve supported a runaway scheme?" Vex’ voice is dry. "We’re _kids_, Vax. Kids. And there’s bears and things in those woods, you know. Being here is better than—"

"Than what?" Now he does lift his head, glaring daggers at his sister. She has pulled her knees to her chest, hugging them close, and she reciprocates his glare without flinching. "Dad hates us, he just keeps us around 'cause he hates Mum even more. And this _place_ doesn’t like us, either —"

"What does that even mean?", Vex interrupts without a trace of anger in her voice.

"No one wants us here!", Vax exclaims, and Vex lifts a finger to her lips to shush him. "Everyone is stuck-up and — and weird, and —"

He tries, rather desperately, to find the words into which to put the utter unfamiliarity of this place, the way it just feels wrong to him, every day from the moment he opens his eyes. Like they deeply and fundamentally don’t belong; not in the school, and certainly not at their dad’s house. The French teacher hired by Syldor looks at them with a mixture of disdain and pity, though Vax doesn’t know for what, exactly; and he and Syldor share significant looks when they think the twins aren’t paying attention. But Vax notices. And he knows his sister does, too.

It’s nothing, nothing like home. Not theirs, certainly, and maybe not any kind at all.

But the words escape him no matter how much he struggles for them, so he ends up with just his mouth opening and closing like a fish. Vex watches him silently. "No one wants us here", he repeats, finally, for lack of better things to say. "Least of all our damn dad."

"I know", Vex says, her voice nearly imperceptibly wavering. When she repeats the phrase, that wavering is gone. "I know. But we just— we just need to hold out a little while longer, yeah? We’ll get back to Mum eventually, but we need to hold out for now."

Vax quietly lowers his head back onto his arms into comfortable darkness. "I miss Mum."

He twitches in surprise when Vex puts her hand on his, but doesn’t pull his hand away, letting her squeeze his fingers. "Yeah", she just says, voice soft and strangely wobbly. "I know."

Second bell rings. Neither of them moves as the remaining voices and footsteps subside and the doors shut one by one.

"But, you know", Vex says and sniffs loudly, "maybe we can find some things that are good about this place." Vax scoffs, and her voice gains an edge when she speaks again. "I’m serious, Vax. I don’t wanna be miserable all the time."

He bites his lip and raises his head to look at his sister. Vex’ eyes are slightly red-rimmed, but her face is set in determination. "I want to have _friends_, Vax", she says quietly. "And I want _you _to have friends. 'Cause it makes me sad to see you sad, and don’t tell me you’re not, that’s a lie." His mouth clamps shut again with an audible _click_, and Vex chuckles. "I’m not saying it has to be the Pike bunch. Or anyone in particular at all. But…"

She trails off, then, but Vax knows what she means to say. _Can you try?_

He’s honestly not sure. There’s something in his chest that recoils violently at the thought of — well, of anything in this place finding a spot close to his heart. If he makes friends with someone, will he miss home less? Wouldn’t that be a betrayal of everything? Wouldn’t that be forsaking their mother?

"I’ll think about it", he says quietly and squeezes her hand. "Promise."

"Okay." Vex gives him a small smile. "Are you fine to go to class?"

Vax smiles back weakly. He’s not, really; in Byroden, he would have run home. However, he doesn’t think Syldor will write a note to the teacher that he got sick, like their mum would always do. "Yeah."

Vex gets to her feet first and pulls him upright. They make their way quietly through the corridors, halting in front of the classroom door. "What’s our story?", Vax whispers.

"I’ve got it, just go along with me", she whispers back before she swiftly knocks on the door, waits for Miss Vysoren’s "yes?", and pushes it open.

"I’m very sorry, Miss Vysoren, Vax’ildan got lost and I had to go find him!" Her voice is a perfect picture of innocense and upset, and Vex pulls an apologetic face to go along with it as Miss Vysoren frowns at her from the teacher’s desk. Vax bites his lip to keep from sputtering in indignance and instead takes a quick look around the room.

All of the tables have been pushed to the side, and the rest of the class is standing in two lines of seven kids each at opposite sides of the classroom, with most heads currently turned towards them. Pike, at the far end, beams at them, and Keyleth gives a small wave next to her; on the other side, Scanlan nods appreciatively. Grog is shifting from foot to foot, standing in front of the blackboard.

"Mmh-mmh", Miss Vysoren says suspiciously, drawing out the sound. "It’s alright, but I’ll have to mark a tardy for both of you. Next time, come tell me." Vex nods vigorously, and after receiving an elbow to the ribs, Vax joins her. "We’re doing Multiplication Olympics — Vax’ildan, why don’t you join the group at the window, and Vex’ahlia, stay over here."

Vax nudges his sister with his shoulder before trotting over to the far side of the classroom, where Pike steps to the side to allow him into the row as Keyleth tracks him with her eyes. She doesn’t say anything, but she gives him a quick smile.

"The rules are simple", Miss Vysoren says, stepping up to lean against her desk with a grin. "You guys line up, and I’ll put a bell on the table in front of you. I’ll call out a multiplication up to 100. Whoever’s in front figures out the solution as fast as possible, hits the bell, and calls out. I say yes or no, and Grog notes down which team gets a point if the answer was correct." Grog, at the blackboard, nods proudly. "If a wrong answer is called out, the person who called it moves to the side."

Vax looks over at his sister and barely suppresses a laugh at the way that Vex’ eyes have lit up at the proposition of a _contest_. Their eyes meet, and he tilts his head in amusement; _come on, really?_

She smirks back. _Shut up._

"Alright, guys!" Miss Vysoren stands up straight. "Grog, ready?"

"Yeah", the boy says excitedly.

"Everyone, ready?"

A chorus of varyingly enthusiastic assent replies.

"Great. Ready, set…" Miss Vysoren leans forward slightly and looks about the room, building suspense. Vax bites his lip to keep from smiling; he is _not_ liking this, he _isn’t_. "Go!"

***

"Jarrett, six times five."

"Thirty!"

"Point! Percy, seven times six."

"Fourty-two."

"Point! Vex’ahlia, eight times four."

"Thirty-two!"

Vax is sitting on a desk, leaning forward, nearly breathless as he watches the show-down at the front of the class. There’s just three people remaining — his sister, the white-haired boy Percy, and Jarrett-with-the-accent; the others got sorted out, mostly via the seven- and nine-times table. Vax, for his part, flunked on six times nine (fifty-four), but he’s pretty sure he can deal with the shame. That Lyra girl, the one who just had to put his sister on the spot in English class, missed eight times nine, and she’s currently pouting in the back corner. Vax can’t say he’s feeling a lot of pity.

"Jarrett, eight times seven."

The boy is on his tip-toes in concentration. "Sixty-five. No wait!"

"That’s a twist of numbers, I’m sorry, Jarrett, no point for this one!" Miss Vysoren lifts her hands in apology. "We’re going into a lightning round!"

Vax groans in chorus with a bunch of other kids and scoots to the edge of the table, letting Jarrett share the spot with him. When the boy sits down, Vax claps him on the shoulder. "Good job up there!"

Jarrett grins wrily. "Got very lucky. Those two can go forever, it seems."

"Grog, feel free to go sit down, this isn’t point-based anymore", Miss Vysoren says. Grog bounces over to Pike, who welcomes him with a wide smile and a loudly whispered _good job!_. "Percy, Vex’ahlia, you’ve both done extraordinarily well, so we’ll go into a sudden death round — whoever gives a wrong answer first loses. Any questions?"

"No", Vex says, setting her jaw and rolling her shoulders.

"No", Percy echoes, hands folded behind his back.

"Fantastic. Ready, set… _go!_"

The two of them go back and forth for nearly a minute until Percy hesitates a fraction of a second before giving an answer. By that time, Vax has stood up on a chair, nearly vibrating up and down with tension, and before he can catch himself, he finds himself yelling, "you’ve almost got him, Stubby!"

A few chuckles arise, and Vex smiles tightly as she answers her own question (eight times eight, sixty-four). But his exclamation seems to have started something, and a few seconds later, sandy-haired Wren hollers, "come on, Percival!", and more voices begin to chime in for either combattant.

"Twenty-seven", Percy answers, and Vax could swear that there’s beads of sweat collecting on his forehead.

Vex takes a deep breath as Miss Vysoren asks "nine times seven", and answers "sixty-three" in a rush. Her eyes narrow as she looks at Percy during his turn; and just as Miss Vysoren calls her name, she turns around to face him and stares him straight down. "Eight times six." — "Fourty-eight."

Vax clenches his fists, mouth half-open in surprise. Is she trying to freak the white-haired boy out?Either way, it seems to be working, because Pervical goes out of his way to avoid her stare.

"Percival, four times nine."

"Thirty-six", the boy answers with barely any hesitation.

"Vex’ahlia, six times seven."

She tilts her head and smiles widely at Percy. "Fourty-two."

"Percy, seven times nine."

He opens his mouth — and closes it again. Vax stands up on his tip-toes, tense as a spring. "Sixty… two?"

Vex yelps in delight a millisecond before Miss Vysoren shakes her head, and half of the room erupts into cheers as Vax leaps off of his chair and jumps to hug his sister, lifting her off the ground for a moment. "_Yes!_"

"Well done to both of you, Percival, Vex’ahlia, and to the rest of you — I never expected this to last for a whole _hour_ —" Miss Vysoren pulls out her desk chair and nearly collapses into it. "Take ten minutes, everyone, you’ve earned it!"

Pike grabs hold of Vex’ shoulder and shakes her in delight. "That was incredible!", she exclaims.

"That was a _shit-_ton of numbers", Scanlan says appreciatively.

"Thanks?", Vex says, laughing. "Wait a second —" She frees herself from Vax’ arm around her shoulders, and he lets her go reluctantly, letting her walk across the room to Percy.

"Hey", she says, coming to a halt a few steps in front of him. He eyes her up and down, and for a moment, neither of them speaks — until Vex stretches out her hand. "Good game."

Percival hesitates, then grasps her hand for a handshake. "Good game."

"I’m sorry for freaking you out", Vex says. "I’m not sure that was fair."

"There were no rules against it, so I suppose you were perfectly within your rights", Percival replies politely. "I would probably have done something similar soon."

Vex shrugs, still smiling. "Thank you for the challenge, anyways. It was fun."

"She can play PacMan, too!", Grog proclaims loudly, prompting Vex to turn around. Grog, Pike, Keyleth and Scanlan gather around Vax as Vex rejoins her brother, laughing and joking with them.

Vax, in the middle of this throng of voices and laughter, finds himself quieting down suddenly. His sister’s voice rings in his head again, telling him "I don’t want to be miserable"; "I want to have friends".

There’s so much noise around the two of them, and Vex is smiling more than she has in the previous week. And if Vax is being honest… he likes this, too. The easy laughter, the casual kindness.

Maybe, just maybe, he can get used to this.


	18. chapter 17 - keyleth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A headquarters is established, and a beginning is marked. Keyleth knows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look at them becoming a groupppp!! i love them so much u guys. that's really all i have to say on this one. hope u enjoy, and thank u for the comments and kudos <3

It’s nice, she thinks, how excited Vax’ildan is for his sister. He seems like more of himself like this, when he bounces around, slinging arms around shoulders and smiling thoughtlessly.

Keyleth keeps out of the buzzing group around Vex’ahlia, stalwartly defending her place on top of one of the desks, arms around her knees tugged to her chest. Grog looks over to her for a second, raises his eyebrows and shows her a thumbs-up, and she does a thumbs-up back. This is fine, for her; she likes being somewhere at the outskirts of where things are happening, right where she won’t get overwhelmed.

She glances around the room. Now that Miss Vysoren has called out a break, a few different clusters of kids have been established: there’s Jarett, Aiden, Wren, and Zahra; then Lyra sitting with Marlene, and Illya with Lissa. The biggest group in the classroom is hers — Grog, Pike, Scanlan, and the twins. Keyleth feels a strange kind of satisfaction at that.

Percy is by himself, though, she notices. He’s kneeling by his desk, digging through his backpack and finally pulling out a bottle of water. He doesn’t move to join anyone, just stands back up, leans against the table, and drinks.

Keyleth hesitates for a second; then, she untangles herself, slides down from her desk, and begins walking towards the white-haired boy. Percy looks up before she gets there, and she has to grab onto her own arm and squeeze a little so she keeps going. Once she comes to a halt in front of him, Percy just raises his eyebrows.

"You did really good", she says, fixing her eyes on a point just by his ear. "That was an awful lot of numbers."

"Numbers are easy once you have them in your head", Percy replies easily. "But thank you."

"Are you sad that you lost?"

"No, not really", he says, shrugging. "As I said, maths is just remembering. Vex’ahlia was quite the worthy opponent."

Keyleth tilts her head, slightly confused. Was that a compliment or an insult, or both? "Okay", she ends up saying, neither here nor there. "Do you want to have lunch with us later?"

He twitches at that. "Why?", he asks sharply.

_Oh._ Keyleth shuffles backwards a little. "'Cause I wanted to talk to you", she says, slightly alarmed, "and it’s almost lunchtime. Is that not okay?"

"No— I mean, yes, that’s alright." Percy looks at her strangely — alarmed?

Keyleth’s hands flutter over her arms anxiously. "I just wanted to ask", she says quickly. "I’m sorry —"

"It’s just that I’m afraid I might not be the best company", Percy interrupts so rapidly that she might call it haste, were it not Percy. "I haven’t really, ah, had opportunity to get reacquainted w-with the school, or the city in general."

Her hands calm down a little. "Oh, that’s fine", she says, relieved. "You don’t have to talk, they’re fine with that."

"No, it, it’s not that—" He takes a deep breath, as if to calm himself down.

Keyleth tightens her grip on her arms. "It’s okay if you don’t want to. I won’t be mad." To reaffirm her point, she smiles, because she really doesn’t want to make him uncomfortable, doesn’t want to push him. She doesn’t like anything of the sort done to her when the situation is reversed.

"I — I will have to decline, today, then", Percy affirms, still strangely nervous-seeming. "But you’re very — very kind, Keyleth, thank you."

She shrugs, attempting to put some of Pike’s usual merriment into the gesture. "Don’t mention it", she says. "You can just come up and join us if you want. At any point."

"Why?"

Keyleth raises her eyebrows, surprised, as Percy’s eyes immediately begin to dart around like he’s let something slip that he’s not supposed to say. But she answers anyway, because it’s a legitimate question, isn’t it? "'Cause you’ve been nice to me", she says with a careful smile. "And Pike told me you’re nice in Latin class, too. And also, you sit alone at lunch a lot of the time and that’s not too fun, usually."

Percy opens and closes his mouth a few times, but he’s saved from having to reply by Miss Vysoren, who calls out for all of them to return to their desks. Keyleth gives Percy an awkward little wave and quickly makes her way to her desk, folding her body into the chair again.

After a while, Miss Vysoren calls out for all of them to return to their desks so she can finish up the twenty-odd minutes remaining in the lesson. Once the bell rings, and everyone has packed up their backpacks, Pike gathers up the twins, tugging them along to lunch with the rest of their little group. Vex hesitates and glances over at her brother, but Vax shrugs and gives the barest hint of a smile, so it’s decided.

The twins don’t say much as all six kids inhale the pizza slices that have been a fixture in the lunch room since Keyleth can remember, and probably even since Grog can remember. While Pike, Grog, and Scanlan get into an extended discussion about their favourite video game, and Keyleth folds boats out of the paper handkerchiefs as she listens intently, Vex and Vax glance at each other occasionally, but they stay quiet unless someone asks them their opinion.

When they find their way back up out of the cellar room that holds the cafeteria, they blink into the sun to discover that all the usual good spots on the playground have been taken — the swings, the crow’s nest, the monkey bars — and either by big groups or by older kids, and then even Pike, Grog, and Scanlan can’t charm their way into a take-over.

Keyleth, though, takes a look around and just manages to catch the twins exchange another glance, Vex’ eyebrows raised, Vax’ furrowed. "What?", she asks softly, making the boy twitch slightly.

"We, uh — we know a spot behind the building…", Vex says hesitantly. "But you have to climb over the fence to get there, and I don’t think that’s—"

"_Cool_", Grog says with profound awe, nudging Pike. "Can’t believe we never thought o’ that!"

Pike shrugs with a grin. "Well, we still have the secret door to the roof."

Vax’ eyes widen. "There’s a secret door to the roof?"

"Yeah!", Pike replies enthusiastically while the group trots over to the part of the fence separating the schoolyard from the patch of trees behind the building. "It’s top secret, though."

They wait for a moment when no teachers are around; Vax scrambles over the fence by himself while Grog boosts Scanlan, Pike, Keyleth and Vex up. She notices, with mild surprise, that Vax keeps his eyes fixed on whoever is currently climbing over, watching keenly for their feet to slip off the narrow metal rods. It’s half sweet, half funny; it’s not like he could catch anyone, reedy as he is. But Keyleth still smiles at him and says thank you once her feet are safely on the ground.

Her thoughts are quickly taken over, though, when the twins show them the clearing. Keyleth closes her eyes as she breathes in and feels a smile spread over her face — a real one, the kind she doesn’t have to think about or control as warmth spreads in her chest.

Vax and Grog instantly climb onto the lower branches of one of the trees, suddenly easy with their little nudges and laughter. And Vex — Vex just stands there, looking around the group as Pike, Keyleth, and Scanlan excitedly chatter about _possibilities_.

"Hey! Hey, guys!", Pike calls out, skipping a few steps forward to the tree where Vax and Grog are sitting. "Keyleth says we could build something here, with the branches and stuff!"

"Like a clubhouse?", Grog asks with a mixture of skepticism and excitement. "Do we have enough stuff for that?"

"It’s just branches for the structure, I think", Keyleth says, hands blurry with movement by her sides, because this feels _wonderful —_ a place for her and her friends, just theirs. "And, mh, blankets? And tarp, or just something to throw over so it won’t rain in?"

"That’s so rad", Scanlan breathes, eyes gleaming.

"We need to plan this, though, guys", Pike says, reaching up to swing back and forth with a hold on a branch. "What do we have?"

At some point during the rest of the lunch break, Grog and Pike egg each other on to race up to the top of a tree, so Keyleth and Scanlan take the chance to climb up to a branch that’s good for sitting, with Vax’ help. Finally, even Vex gives up her hesitations to get her skirt dirty, though it takes her a few minutes to clamber up.

When Keyleth looks down to the twins again, Vax has an arm slung around his sister’s shoulder;and the next second, Vex is squeaking indignantly as he seizes his chance to nearly tickle her right back off the branch. Scanlan nudges her to start a clapping game, nice and easy, and Keyleth quietly acknowledges that this is something starting, starting.


	19. bonus II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief foray into Allura's perspective at a parent-teacher meeting with a certain Syngornian diplomat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hoo boy this was a fun one to write! i love Blue Mom ok  
also, thus concludes part II of this little story! next chapter is going to have a bit of a time jump, a few weeks further into the school year. it'll be fun u guys.  
thank u for any comments or kudos, i appreciate it massively <3

A knock at the door, a warning smile from Uriel as he steps to the door, and the door clicks open. "Mr Vessar, I’m so glad you could make it to this meeting."

The tall, dark-haired man steps into the room, silently shakes Uriel’s hand, and looks around with a discerning glare, a teacher’s lounge in all its glory. He takes in the bookshelves, the tattered coffee machine, the slightly beaten-up furniture, before settling on Allura.

She takes her cue to step forward, hand outstretched, her own neat-and-tidy smile already put on. "Allura Vysoren; I’m your children’s class teacher. It’s a pleasure, Mr Vessar."

"The pleasure is mine, Mrs Vysoren."

Allura winces minutely, but she manages to maintain her smile. "It’s _Miss_ Vysoren." But Mr Vessar has already turned around to Uriel again, who has closed the door.

"It’s my understanding that this is standard procedure for new students, correct? I would hate to learn that the children have gotten into trouble so soon."

"Not at all", Allura says, gesturing for the round table. "The twins have been adjusting to the situation, but considering this, they’ve done just fine here. They’ve been getting to know the other kids, exploring the building — it’s quite according to other kids’ adjustment periods."

"That’s good to hear", Mr Vessar says, clipped as he pulls out a chair and sits down at the table in a smooth movement. Allura and Uriel mirror him. "I’ve been worried they wouldn’t rise to meet the potential challenge."

"Well, they’re doing just fine in their classes", Allura replies, shuffling her pieces of paper and pushing one over for Mr Vessar to view. He doesn’t make any move towards it. "Social contacts are always a worry when children of their age move schools, but they’ve already made progress in this area…" She smiles. "Just this Friday, in fact —"

Mr Vessar cuts her off. "It’s my impression that you teach French in the fourth grade", he says, leaning forward. "Do they display any sort of aptitude for it?"

"Yes, of course that would be important to you", Uriel interjects. "The language of their father’s home country, isn’t it?" Mr Vessar nods curtly.

"I’ve only had two French lessons with them", Allura says, glancing at both men with an annoyance that only Uriel seems to register. "In those as in other subjects, they’ve been reserved, but usually their answers are correct, when prompted."

"The subject is of quite some importance to me." Mr Vessar taps on the table with an outstretched finger for emphasis. "I very much… _regret_ that they haven’t been taught the language until now, but I suppose that’s a byproduct of their childhood."

Allura and Uriel exchange a glance. "I’m certain they’ll pick it up in no time", Allura responds, though at this point, there’s an uneasy dislike of this man twisting in her belly. "Children are apt to do so, at this age." Uriel nods encouragingly.

"Mr Tal’dorei, Miss Vysoren, I’m afraid you don’t understand." Mr Vessar steeples his hands and leans forward, grey eyes stern. "These children need to be pushed to surpass their… beginnings."

"Beginnings?" Allura frowns at him. "You mean their life with their mother?"

"You didn’t see the place in which they lived." He sighs. "It was squalid at best. The children, they have potential. I’m sure of that, or I wouldn’t have…" Allura squares her shoulders minutely as Mr Vessar sighs once more. "But I need to be very meticulous in meting out the… faults they couldn’t help but pick up in their unfortunate circumstances."

"Their work here has been satisfactory in all areas, really", Uriel says slowly, scanning the file in front of him. "Vex’ahlia is very well-behaved, excels in Maths and Nature, and Vax’ildan…"

Mr Vessar groans. "Don’t tell me. I know the boy is abrasive and rude at best; I can’t imagine he’s behaved any differently towards his teachers."

"He’s got his walls up, yes, but he hasn’t been any trouble in the classroom", Allura says, keeping her anger tied up tight in her voice. "Miss Kima tells me he’s been doing fantastic in his Athletics and P.E. classes."

Mr Vessar does actually seem surprised at that, leaning back in his chair. "Sports… I’ll keep that in mind."

Uriel clears his throat. "Mr Vessar, the twins have not been acting out in any manner that’s not to be expected from two young kids that have just moved across the country", he says. "I don’t think you have anything to worry about."

The dark-haired man nods, considering. "Well, I’m glad to hear that", he replies. "Though, I do ask that any undesirable behavior is reported to me instantly."

"Of course, Mr Vessar."

"_Any_ undesirable behavior." He fixes Uriel, then Allura with his gaze. "If the boy curses, I want to know about it. If the girl is being disrespectful, I want to be informed of it. If they miss homework assignments—"

"I think we’ve understood your meaning, sir", Allura interrupts. And she’s glaring back by now, she doesn’t need Uriel’s nudging his foot against her shin to confirm it.

Mr Vessar looks at her sharply. "My main concern is for the children’s good", he says. "I want them to overcome what they were… unfortunately saddled with at birth."

"I’m sure of that, Mr Vessar", Uriel replies quickly, and redirects the conversation into meaningless small talk that makes the hairs on the back of Allura’s neck curl into corkscrews. She leans back, nods, smiles, and interjects when she needs to for the next few minutes.

Finally, Uriel smoothly finishes the conversation, half-rising from his chair. Mr Vessar follows suit. "I know you’re likely a very busy man. Thank you for making time to meet with us."

Mr Vessar nods briskly as he shakes Uriel’s hand and gives what is almost a small bow towards Allura. "Ma’am." She raises an eyebrow and does not respond.

Uriel shows him out, shutting the door behind the ambassador. By the time he turns around to the table, Allura is on her feet with her arms spread out to the sides. "Come _on_, Uriel!"

"He’s a first-time parent to two ten-year-olds, Allura", Uriel says with a sigh as he picks up the file from the table. "It’s not an easy task. And considering Syngorn’s traditions and the burdens of ambassadorship…"

"_I need to push them to overcome their unfortunate beginnings?_"

Uriel winces. "I know. It seems… harsh. But he’s doubtlessly dedicated to the children’s well-being, and he’s only known of their existence for what, two months?"

Allura moves to respond, but Uriel holds up a hand to stop her. "I realise your concerns. But Mr Vessar has a very good reputation, well-maintained connections to this school, and you cannot judge him on the basis of one conference and a month’s knowledge of his children." Allura scoffs. "You _know_ it’s perfectly normal for them to be distressed at this time."

"Yes, he’s removed them from their mother, the only parent they knew, and their home, all in one swoop. I’d worry if they weren’t acting out." She runs her hand through her hair.

"He is their father. From what we know of the mother’s situation, he was within his rights to take the kids." Uriel tilts back his head, staring at the ceiling for a moment before returning to her. "You’re their class teacher. I’m not telling you to ignore the twins from now on. Just give the family some time to adjust, please."

Allura nods reluctantly. "Certainly." She moves to leave.

"And, Allura." She turns back around; Uriel is looking at her gravely. "If he wants detailed notes on the children’s behavior, he’s going to get them. Put a note in their homework journals and have the father sign it. Understood?"

Allura grimaces before she manages to school her features. Uriel gives her a wry smile. "Yes, sir."


	20. pt. III: ice, cracking. chapter 18 - grog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> About a month later, everything is coming together just a little more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! i'm very sorry for the delay with this chapter, i had some story-world timing issues to work out lol. also, i'll be on vacation over new years, so the next chapter is probably also gonna be out in 1.5-2 weeks or so, but then everything should go back to normal!  
i hope everyone has a lovely holiday time and that family is bearable. if you have the time, i would appreciate a comment!

_— monday, 1st break; ca. 1 month later —_

Grog is swinging off the monkey bars when Scanlan nudges him in the side. "Oi, big boy, I see the others. Oh, they’re definitely — they’re running, you gotta —" But Grog is already dropping to the ground, putting himself straight in Pike’s path. She slams into him at full speed, and the impact drives most of the air out of his body with a soft _oof!_.

"Oh! Grog, I’m sorry!", she babbles, even as Grog staggers back, holding her by the shoulders. Really, he’s got himself back in order just a second later, but Pike still puts her hands on his chest as if she’d like to smoothe down the point of impact. "Are you okay?"

"’s fine, all good", he replies, just a little hoarser than usual, patting her on the shoulder good-naturedly.

"He says that", Vax interjects as he and his sister saunter up along with Keyleth. "You have _really _sharp shoulders, I remember that much." Pike tuts at him.

"Tell them!", Keyleth urges, gently shaking Vex by the elbow, her other hand a flapping blur by her side.

"Tell us what?", Scanlan asks curiously.

Vax glances at his sister, and they give each other identical smirks before Vex turns back to face the group with a grin on her face. "Father’s gonna let us go to Afternoons."

Grog whoops triumphantly as Scanlan loudly says "_fuck_ yes!", Keyleth begins bouncing on the balls of her feet, and Pike laughs delightedly, even ignoring the Scanlan’s use of the f-word for the time being.Vax, beaming, holds out a fist, and the three boys end up bumping fists at the same time in a mess of confused congratulations.

They’ve been working on this for the better part of three weeks, coming up with more and more reasons for the twins’ dad to let them stay in the Afternoons programme. As Vex and Vax hesitantly began to warm up to Grog, Pike, Scanlan, and Keyleth, they discovered quickly that meeting up outside of school was going to be _much_ more difficult than anticipated. Apparently, Syldor likes to keep his kids busy outside of school with an amount of French that regularly makes Vax break out his best array of swear words, while making Vex weary enough to not protest these impressive displays.

So they all decided that the only way for the twins to get some actual free time was to get them into Afternoons at least some of the time. Several breaks were spent just filling up a page in Keyleth’s notebook with arguments for their purpose, which Grog found to be so boring he was tempted to put his head through the brick wall of the school building.

"How’d you manage that?", Scanlan asks, his face a mixture of mild awe and satisfaction. "Thought he was dead-set against the idea."

"Well, it helped that Vax wasn’t in the room for this second try", Vex says wrily. "I think that gave me a real advantage."

"You’re really goin’ to give me that?!", Vax asks indignantly. "You sold my soul to get us in there! I—"

"What do you mean?", Pike interrupts as Vex snorts.

"There’s this big rich-people dinner next weekend, and he wants to take us with him", Vax explains glumly. "And sister dearest made this bargain on the condition that I wear what he tells me to wear, and do what he wants me to do, and probably tape my mouth shut for the entire thing, and —"

Vex groans. "Oh, don’t be dramatic. It’s an evening, and I’ll be there, too. Under the same conditions, you know." Vax continues to scowl, and she shakes her head at him before continuing. "Anyways, I got Tuesdays and Thursdays out of him, the other days he still wants us to get French tutoring."

"Shouldn’t you be fluent by now?", Grog says incredulously.

Vax shrugs. "Nous allons bien, mais notre putain de père…" He breaks off when Vex gasps and sharply jabs him in the side with her elbow. "Oof — stop that!" Keyleth cackles gleefully, and he sends her a crooked smile for her trouble.

"Keyleth, you speak French?", Vex asks, brow furrowing.

"Mais oui", she says easily. "Mes parents m’ont appris — c’est leur langue avec l’anglais."

Grog eyes all three of them suspiciously. "I don’t know what anyone is saying right now, and I don’t think I like that…"

Scanlan looks at Pike from where he’s once again dangling from the monkey bars and wrily says, "Si ahora empezamos hablar en español podemos volverlo loco."

"Aw, guys!", Grog complains at the same time as Pike laughs and scolds, "Scanlan, no!"

"Sorry, big boy." Vax claps his shoulder good-naturedly and clambers up to the highest of the bars, the one he can hang from and his feet dangle a solid foot above the ground. Everyone in his friend group is _tiny, _Grog keeps having to remind himself. "Has anyone gotten stuff for the hut, though?"

"Don’t call it a hut", Scanlan says disapprovingly. "It takes all the glamour out of it!"

"I’ve got an old tent", Pike says, her voice suddenly infused with excitement. "With the tentpoles and all — I was thinking we could make the structure more stable, tie 'em to the branches?"

Their little clubhouse back in the forest behind the school is coming along prettily at this point, Grog has to agree. They’ve stuck branches into the earth, making a shelter that should hold up against rain coming from one direction, at least; Keyleth and Vex have taken to strategizing together, drawing sketches during classes and talking quietly about how to make everything more stable. Grog, highly aware of his strengths and weaknesses, tunes out during those conversations, either to daydream or to play tag with whoever else is available, and puts in his piece when it comes to carrying branches or helping the others cross the fence.

True to form, Grog smoothly steps out of the conversation and taps Vax on the shoulder. "Race you over the fence?"

The boy swings himself back up onto the bar, then jumps down to the floor. "To the storage tree?" Grog nods his assent. "On three. One… two… _three_!", and they’re both speeding off. Vax is a blur in Grog’s periphery and pulls a ways ahead of him, but the boy’s feet slip on the thin metal bars, giving Grog the chance to pull himself up and over.

He drops to the ground and begins running again. Suddenly, though, there’s that Vax-shaped blur on the outskirts of his vision again, and Grog’s heart nearly leaps out of his chest when the boy lands a few feet _in front_ of him with a heavy grunt. "How the—" But Vax just gives a cackling laugh and throws himself forward. Grog, running with his hand outstretched, manages to hit the tree just a fraction of a second after the younger kid.

"_Damn_ it!", he grits out once he’s recovered from the impact of body against tree trunk, kicking the wood sulkily. "That was cheating!"

"Was not", Vax says easily, knocking into him as they begin sauntering back to the fence. Grog takes a deep breath against the fire inevitably rising in his belly while Vax begins whistling like he doesn’t know what’s happening. It’s just in time that Grog spots Pike, laughing with Vex and Scanlan.

His anger recedes softly, like the breaking of a wave.

Vax sighs. "I’m really, really glad we get to be in Afternoons now", he says, and he sounds like he means it.

Grog nods with a satisfied smile. The remaining ripples of fury in his stomach disappear with his next breath. "’s awesome."

As Vax climbs back over the fence ahead of him, another question arises in his mind, and his smile falters a little. "Really, Vax, how’s it going, though?"

"With what?" Vax drops to the concrete.

"With your dad." Grog watches Vax’ face carefully through the metal bars. "’s he… being okay, to you?" He thinks of his own family; thinks of fists meeting bones, and blood, and lost breath against splintering wood floors.

Vax’ expression is inscrutable for a few seconds before he says, "yeah. I mean, I hate the guy, but… he’s fine. Hasn’t…" He looks down to the ground, then up again, eyes darker. _Angry_, Grog thinks, because he knows that feeling so well. "He’s fine."

They’re both silent for just a moment; then Vax slaps his hand against the fence, making it shiver in place for a second. "Come on, we can’t leave Scanlan alone with the planning committee over there."

So Grog makes his way over the fence, and he casually trips the other boy as they’re walking toward the group. Catches him by the collar, too, when Vax actually almost falls on his face. But even as he swats at Grog and grins, that anger doesn’t quite manage to leave Vax’ eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
"Nous allons bien, mais notre putain de père…" -- (loosely) We're doing fine, but our fuck of a father...  
"Mais oui. Mes parents m’ont appris — c’est leur langue avec l’anglais." -- Of course. My parents taught it to me - it's their language along with English.  
"Si ahora empezamos hablar en español podemos volverlo loco." -- If we start talking in Spanish now we can drive him mad.


	21. chapter 19 - vex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy and Vex have a conversation, again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy new year y'all! hope you enjoy this. also pls comment if u have the time, it really helps keep me motivated.

_— monday, 4th period —_

"I will pass around the reading list now — be _quiet_, children", Mr Noja calls over the excited din of voices. "You will pick a book, one each, on which to — Scanlan, be quiet! — to write a report. You can ask either me or your English teacher for help at any time, since this is considered an inter-disciplinary project —"

"Does the list start or end with the easy picks, Mr N?", Scanlan hollers from the back row.

The teacher scowls. "None of them are easier or harder, they’re merely from different genres —"

"I don’t believe you, Mr N!"

Vex grins and looks over to where Scanlan is sitting sideways in his chair, legs thrown over the arm rests. He winks at her when he catches her looking; she scowls back and retreats into her seat. "Do you guys know what you’re picking?"

"My grandpa told me about the Narnia books, so that’s definitely what I’m reading", Pike says, eyes gleaming. "It’s got an evil queen and all!"

"So I guess I’m reading that too", Grog says, grimacing. "Nah, Pikey, it’s not about the book — just," he shrugs sheepishly, "the reading part." It still escapes Vex how Pike and Grog have gotten so many teachers to let them do so much of the classwork together, but it’s out of the question for Grog to do everything by himself. At nearly twelve years old, he’s only really mathematically comfortable with numbers up to around 20, and his reading skill is, frankly, frightening. But she has not seen anyone, even from their little group, give him grief about it. It confuses her.

"I want the one with the rival bandits", Vax interjects, glaring at the others as if daring to challenge his pick.

Scanlan raises his hands. "Don’t look at me like that, o Dark and Broody One, I’m fine with whatever’s left."

"_The Hobbit_", Keyleth says quietly, but fiercely. "I know it from pictures. All green." Vex smiles while Grog asks, "what the hell is a hobbit?"

The sign-up sheet makes its way through the class. When it gets to their little group, Vex stays out of the fray while the others wrestle for the pen; by the time they hand it to her, almost all the slots are filled, and all of her friends have had their picks — Keyleth, "_The Hobbit"_; Pike and Grog, "_The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe_"; Vax, "_Ronia the Robber’s Daughter_". Vex hesitates, then puts her name next to "_The Tale of Despereaux_", because it sounds fantastical and vaguely French.

Scanlan inspects the list as she hands it to him. "_Percy Jackson_ _and the Lightning Thief_." He raises one eyebrow. "Sounds like a fun time."

Over time, Mr Noja manages to quiet down the kids and begins outlining a reading schedule for them to follow — fifteen pages of their respective books to be read by next week, including a written summary. The class gives a collective groan, and Pike leans over to whisper to Vex that this is just typical; Mr Noja used to teach at a university, so he always gives lots of homework.

Vex gives an acknowledging nod, but what she’s thinking is that she’s really quite glad to have enough homework to last her the better part of every afternoon she and her brother spend at their father’s house.

Syldor has taken to inspecting their homework before dinner. When she does well — with neat and tidy writing to spell an answer to every question — he gives her an appreciating nod or a small word of praise. Vex soaks it up with sickening guilt in her stomach, and she stares at her hands folded in her lap while her father snaps at her brother over his own work.

It frustrates her, because Vex knows Vax is smart, and she also knows exactly where it shows. Like in the way he writes the French essays their tutor requests of them once every week — much too short and generously peppered with insults and swear words, but his grammar perfect throughout. Vax is just too stubborn to stick to what Syldor expects.

Mr Noja gives them the rest of the lesson off to start their reading. Vex makes the mistake of deciding to go to the bathroom beforehand, and when she gets back, Pike and Grog are already huddled together on two bean bag chairs. With a second glance around, she spots Vax, Keyleth, and Scanlan lounging by a window, but she doesn’t feel like leaning against a radiator right now.

So Vex sighs, grabs _The Tales of Despereaux _off of Mr Noja’s desk, and goes off in search of a free bean bag chair. She walks around the science-fiction section, the fantasy section, towards the non-fictionals— and nearly walks into another person.

"Oh!" She stumbles a steps backwards as the boy opposite her recoils similarly. _Percy_, her mind supplies at the sight of white hair; the boy she beat at the maths quiz a few weeks ago. "Sorry, I wasn’t —"

"It’s alright, I didn’t look where I was going, I do apologize —"

"No, it’s fine —" She breathes, and makes herself smile at the boy, since he looks like all the blood just dropped out of his face. "What book did you pick?"

He frowns and glances at the book in his hands. "It’s called the _Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_. I prefer science fiction when I have to read fiction, and it was the only such book on the list. You?" She holds up her own book in lieu of a response, and Percy nods. "The title comes from the French", he says, like it’s utterly new to her.

Vex feels a stab of annoyance at that. "_Rea-_lly", she draws out. "Did the -eaux clue you in?" Percy looks away immediately, guarded, and Vex softens a little. "What’s it mean?"

"It’s derived from _désespoir_, to despair", Percy says curtly. "That’s what… my tutor told me. When I read it."

Vex can’t stop herself from chuckling, then, as she looks down at the picture of a mouse brandishing a sewing needle like a rapier. "A tale of the desperate", she says quietly. "I must’ve picked the funnest book on that list. Oh —" She looks up at Percy and tilts her head curiously. "You speak French? I don’t remember you being in that class."

"I learn it at home", Percy explains, still not meeting her eyes.

Again, Vex tries and fails to fight the dirty chuckle that rises up through her throat. "Great", she says wrily, "so just about everyone here speaks French except for us, that’s fantastic." Her stomach tightens just slightly. Maybe Syldor was right; maybe her lack of proficiency is a flaw, perceptible by everyone around her. A mark on her and Vax.

Percy clears his throat. "I’ll go — go and read my book, now."

Vex forces herself to smile. "Of course." She steps past him, spotting a fluffy beanbag chair between the rows of bookshelves, but before she reaches it, Percy’s voice sounds again, softer this time.

"Let me know if I can be of assistance."

Vex turns. "Excuse me?"

Percy worries his lower lip for a moment, somehow looking paler than usual. "Syldor Vessar", he says, as if that explains anything, while Vex’ stomach drops to about her kneecaps. "I’ve met him — heard of him, rather, I suppose…"

"How have you heard of my father? _I _had not even heard of my father until —". Vex’ stomach returns to its normal placement, but for some reason, she can’t feel her fingertips now, and her voice is deeper than normally. She thinks of sitting across from Syldor at a dinner table while he clinically assesses their — her — defects, their shortcomings, their faults, and how this boy speaks just like her father does. Will he see exactly what Syldor sees in her, too?

"My family has some connections to the diplomatic circles of this town", he says, not meeting her eys, and then he’s not her father at all, just a child pretending at being adult on the inside. "My father has complained about Syldor Vessar a number of times — and my parents consider themselves conservative, but", he gives something that is almost a chuckle, but then _really_ isn’t, "Syngornian politicians are something else."

_Conservative_. _Syngornian politicians_. Vex opens her mouth to answer, but Percy moves before her, holding out his hand, palm down. "I don’t mean to overstep", he says, voice buttersmooth again. Polished up. It makes her stand up straighter, this accent, and nausea curls in her stomach.

"I apologize. I thought…" He takes a few steps back. "My apologies." And with two quick steps, he’s gone around the corner. Vex is left standing alone, unspoken questions clogging up her throat like bags of wet sand.


	22. chapter 20 - pike

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy de Rolo is a confusing thing, Pike thinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- who's moving in with their gf? THIS GAY so forgive me if the next updates are a little slow.  
\- this chapter gives a few more hints towards Percy's backstory which i've seen some of y'all be excited about! just fyi, i'm not quite sure how much i wanna go into that whole business overall. i probably won't be going very far into the nitty-gritty of it because i can't make these babies suffer that much angst, but i shall definitely find a solution that's satisfying to me B)  
\- Father Reynal is heavily modelled off my old Latin teacher at catholic school lol, and grammar acrobatics is the absolute worst  
\- hope you enjoy! thank you for ur comments, they really keep me motivated <3

_— wednesday, 1st period —_

The Latin classroom is always colder than most of the school, almost notoriously so. It’s in the oldest part of the building, and as far as Pike knows, it was too inaccessible for the renovation crew, so they didn’t redo the heating. That’s why Pike, along with the eight other kids in the room, is still buried in her jacket as she absent-mindedly chews on her fingernails.

Right behind her, Lyra is in the midst of a litany of worries about an upcoming vocabulary test to which Zahra is, at best, indifferent; but Pike barely registers the chatter. Her mind is still in her and Grog’s room, at home in the flat.

He woke up angry in the middle of the night, as he sometimes does, with a ragged roar and immediately on his feet. She can still see his eyes, darting around wildly in the dim glow of the lamplight falling in from the street. It took her a few minutes to coax him into lying back down, on her bed this time so she could curl up against his chest.

In the morning, Grog didn’t speak, just wolfed down his morning cereal and nodded sullenly when addressed. And now, he’s alone in Athletics class — well, with Vax, but she still worries.

Pike startles suddenly as someone drops into the empty seat next to her, and the classroom door slams shut. She looks up to see, first, Percy at his customary desk next to her, breathing heavy, sliding his books out of his bag with one hand as he wipes his face with the other, and secondly, Father Reynal making his way over to the teacher’s desk.

The general chatter in the room dies down, and several chairs scrape on the floor as they’re pushed back. Pike quickly joins the others in standing up, and Percy does as well, nodding to her in passing, his customary greeting.

"Salvete, discipuli et discipulae", Father Reynal crones, setting down his leather bag by the side of his desk.

"Salve, magister", Pike echoes with the others.

"Sedete." They all sit down and bring their chairs back forward. It’s a small ritual that Father Reynal follows at the beginning of every lesson with an air of self-evidence that belies the oddness of it; they don’t have to stand up to greet any other teachers.

"Ostendete pensa domestica vestra, quaeso", Father Reynal commands mildly. Pike wrinkles her nose, remembering this final part of the tradition, and reluctantly opens her exercise book to the most recent page. Her ten lines of homework are more scrawled than carefully penned down, partly because Grog had wanted to continue reading _The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe_, and partly because grammar acrobatics is one of her least favourite things to do.

Father Reynal walks around the room slowly, taking his time to check each student’s homework. He’s known to have high expectations of the kids in his class, so it’s all the more impressive that Percy earns a raised eyebrow and a nod for his work. While Reynal scans his verb forms, Pike studies the white-haired boy; he keeps wiping his mouth and nose on the dark sleeve of his jacket, and he doesn’t meet the eyes of either her or Reynal.

It’s strange, but she cannot focus on it for too long, because once Reynal moves on to her desk, her own work is met with a furrowed brow and a great many marks in bright red ink. "Did you not understand the new forms, Miss Trickfoot?"

"No, I did, but —"

"Then you can do better", he says quietly, but sharply, and she looks down at her desk as she nods. "I expect a reiteration on my desk at the beginning of the next lesson."

"Ita est, magister", she murmurs sullenly.

Percy leans over once the teacher has moved on, tapping on her desk to get her attention. "I can help you rewrite, if you want", he says softly.

Pike sighs. "No, it’s okay, I just—" And that’s when she looks up at him for the first time and nearly gasps. "Percy, your nose!"

He twitches, and his hand immediately goes up to his face. "Oh — I’m sorry, it’s not that bad", he says, very calm as he wipes the blood from under his nose with his jacket sleeve. "The d-dry air here, you know, and the cold."

"You gotta go to the nurse’s office!"

"I’m really quite fine, I don’t want to miss —"

"Silencio, you two", Father Reynal scolds from the back row.

Pike twists towards him. "Father Reynal, Percy’s nose is bleeding", she says, alarm evident in her voice, because now that she’s noticed what he’s doing, she can’t help focussing on the wetness of Percy’s sleeve.

"Hm. Indeed it is." Father Reynal moves towards them, frowning. "Are you alright, Mr de Rolo?"

"I am, sir, it’s not a problem —", Percy replies hastily, but his words are contrasted sharply by the way his hand shoots back up to his face to stop another trickle of blood. Pike winces, and sixth-grader Odessa Tal’dorei murmurs, "eww".

"Well, it appears differently", Father Reynal says drily. "On your way, please, Mr de Rolo, and subito. You can get notes from a classmate later." Percy reluctantly rises and immediately staggers, holding onto his desk for stability; Pike twitches towards him, but Father Reynal is at his side before her. "Alright — alright, perhaps someone should accompany you…"

"Pike, please", he breathes.

It startles Pike, to be quite honest; her eyes widen a little, and she’s suddenly glad he’s not even looking at her. But she rises from her seat, nodding. "No problem, Perce", she says with a levity that immediately feels inappropriate, especially as Percy glances at her lightning-quick.

Father Reynal sighs. "Certainly, but this doesn’t exempt you from classwork, and Miss Trickfoot —"

"Redo last lesson’s homework for Friday and get notes from a classmate later, I know", she says absently as she moves towards the door with Percy, who gives a noise not unlike a snort.

"Miss Trickfoot", Father Reynal says sharply, prompting her to turn around again, slightly embarrassed at her own snark. She puts on her best smile to make up for it. "I meant to say that I expect you back in class in five to ten minutes."

"Yeah, okay", she says meekly. "Sorry." He merely raises an eyebrow, then turns back towards the rest of the class as the door shuts with a _click_.

"Not that I mind a truly terrible amount", Percy says, gently blotting his nose with his sleeve, "but may I make a request?"

"Yeah, of course", Pike says, her hands fluttering around his elbow as she attempts to reconcile her instinct to lead him along with his clear distaste for human touch.

"Do not call me Perce."

"Oh! No, I can do that. Sorry. D’you prefer — I mean, should I call you Percival? Or is Percy alright? Or if you want, I could call you by your middle name, though I don’t even know if you have one —"

He chuckles drily. "Percival is my name, and Percy is an acceptable variant. Choose whichever one suits your fancy."

"Okay", Pike replies, at something at a loss now that her rambling has been cut off. "That — that’s cool."

They walk down the corridors until they reach the staircase, where Pike more-or-less subtly hovers by Percy’s elbow in case he stumbles, or faints, or whatever happened back in the classroom; she really is not sure, and that’s truly an awful lot of blood clinging to his jacketsleeve. She thinks. But Percy does not stumble again. He just walks with very slow, very deliberate steps, dabbing carefully at his nose and jaw.

Pike knocks on Wilhand’s door for him and opens the door without waiting for a response, as usual. "Granpa?", she calls out. "It’s me — and Percy, he’s got a nosebleed!"

A loud and theatrical sigh sounds from the back office, then the creak of a chair and some shuffling. "You visit me entirely too much these days. Are you trying to skip classes, my dear?"

"Nah", Pike drawls, directing Percy over to the cushioned gurney; he resists, though, so she gives up on it soon enough. "But Father Reynal doesn’t like me much, I think."

"You realise that’s not helping your case?" Wilhand comes trotting out of his office, smiling slightly, a cup of tea in one of his hands. "Hello, young man. Percival, is it?"

A muffled sound of vague affirmation comes in response. Pike winces sympathetically. "Hey, granpa, can I go get cookies?"

"Why would this situation call for cookies", Wilhand says absently as he goes up closer to Percy, motioning for him to tilt his head backwards. "May I?" A second of hesitation, then another affirming grunt.

"It calls for cookies 'cause I know you have them right back there and I want cookies. And Percy’s blood sugar is probably super low!", she says, suddenly hit with a stroke of supreme genius. Wilhand sighs and waves her off, so Pike happily skips into his office to retrieve the cookies. They’re hidden in the lowest drawer of his desk in one of those tins that come with _the grossest_ sugar-crusted baked goods that, frankly, don’t even deserve to bear the name of cookies; Wilhand has done well to replace them.

When she comes back into the room, munching blissfully on a chocolate-and-almond cookie, Wilhand has gotten Percy to sit down on the plain chair that he himself usually uses to sit in front of kids on the gurney. "Not nice to look at, certainly not", he mutters to himself as he motions for Percy to pinch his nose shut. "It’s definitely nothing terrible, but if you are feeling faint — I can have the secretary call your guardian, if —"

"_No!_"

Pike jumps, nearly choking on her cookie. By the time she’s saved herself from a coughing fit and looks over to him, Percy has composed himself again, no trace on his face left of the outburst, except for now seemingly forgotten blood slowly making its way from his nose to his lips.

"No", he repeats, though, casual again. Wilhand eyes him almost owlishly, wary. "There’s no need to involve… Anna in this. At all. I just need a minute for…"

"For your nose to stop gushing blood like a leaky faucet?", Wilhand says drily, at the same time that Pike curiously asks, "Why’d you call your mom Anna?"

Many things happen all at once: Pike curses herself in all of the two-point-five languages she knows. Wilhand glares at her with a ferocity that has her wilting. And Percy… Percy _jolts_, like he’s been hit by lightning for a fraction of a second.

"I — I’m sorry", Pike stammers.

"Anna is not my mother", Percy says quietly. But it doesn’t seem like he is replying to her in the least; he’s just speaking towards his knees. Slowly, so slowly, blood collects on the tip of his nose until its own weight makes it drip down to the floor. For the first time today, he isn’t meeting her eyes when speaking.

It feels like he’s suddenly locked himself up, and it registers with her as strangely terrifying.

"Pike, I’m sure Father Reynal wanted you to return to class as soon as possible, am I right?", Wilhand asks in a manner that is somehow both stern and kind. "Go on. Take some cookies with you for later."

She nods mutely, eyes still fixed on Percy as she picks up a few cookies and loosely wraps them in a paper towel. "I’m sorry", she repeats, voice nearly wavering, because she can’t help feeling that she messed up, and badly. "I shouldn’t have asked that — that’s your business, not mine…" He doesn’t reply and doesn’t look up.

"Anyways…", Pike says helplessly. At a loss of what else to do, she puts a cookie onto the gurney for him to take if he feels like it; out of the corner of her eye, she sees Wilhand smiling, letting her relax minutely. "See you later, Percy."

He doesn’t reply. The door clicks shut.


	23. chapter 21 - scanlan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scanlan makes sure these new kids are being good to his friends. Just in case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> scanlan is a similar brand to grog in terms of friend-protecting, fite me. we shift away from percy for the next few chapters, but that's gonna resurface, don't u worry. thank u for commenting, i love reading ur responses! also, they let me know what u'd like to read, cause i didn't initially plan on expanding upon percy's backstory but now i'll doing more of that!

_— same day: thursday, 5th period —_

Pike darts ahead of the group, peers around the corner of a corridor, then waves urgently to the group. Scanlan ushers the twins, Keyleth, and Grog down and over, whispered assurances on his lips; Keyleth grins excitedly at him in passing, and he reciprocates the smile even though he’s being the secret agent, determined to get to his intended target. She’s like that, their little redhead.

"How much longer?", Vex whispers, looking around nervously as the entire gaggle moves down the hallway, then around another corner. This part of the building is empty at this time of day and perfectly quiet, apart from the pit-patting of their soles on linoleum.

"Two more turns", Scanlan answers at an equal volume. "Don’t lose your cool on me now, Agent!" Pike gives an undignified snort.

True to his word, Special Agent Shorthalt only needs another minute to lead his team to the target location; Scanlan pulls the room key out from underneath his t-shirt by the necklace, making a show out of looking around for teachers and leaning against the door to block the view of potential onlookers. The door clicks open, and Scanlan stage-whispers "go! go! go!", windmilling with his arm as he ushers the others inside.

He is the last one to step in, so he carefully pulls the door shut behind him, then turns to the others. Grog and Pike are already bouncing towards the drumset, Keyleth has run up to the whiteboard and grabbed the markers, but Vex and Vax haven’t moved very far into the room.

They’re standing just a few steps away from Scanlan, shoulder by shoulder like something awful is going to happen if they detach from each other’s side. He’s noticed that before — it’s a habit they have in new spaces. It kind of weirds him out, though, so he steps forward and casually wedges himself in between them, one arm over either of their shoulders.

_Holy hell, they even twitch in unison_, he thinks. "Lady and… well, Vax — welcome to the music room", Scanlan says genially. "Courtesy of yours truly. And also the Doc, I guess."

"Wait — Mr Dranzel?" Vex turns with a frown, shaking off Scanlan’s arm with a lot more casualty than her brother, who ducks out with an angry groan and an elbow jab into Scanlan’s side. "I thought he was making that entire Doctor thing up."

"We’re all pretty sure he is", Pike calls from where she’s set up with her maths book next to the drumset. "But Scanlan insists on it 'cause it gets him all-A’s."

Scanlan sputters. "That’s not why I— shut up!"

Pike giggles. "Yeah, I know. Also, I need you to help me with the project this weekend."

Scanlan shakes his head at her, but they both know that come Saturday, he’ll be at her place, glueing leaves onto her collage. He can’t say no to Pike; she just has to smile at him and he’ll go wherever she wants him. It’s strange, really, but he can’t bring himself to dislike it enough to stop. Because it’s Pike.

He’s tried to explain this to his mother, once, when she asked, raspy-voiced during her fifth cigarette of the day, why he does "that dark-haired little girl" so many favours, and his indignant insistence that she’s one of his best friends wasn’t enough. She responded with an eyebrow raised so high that it really should’ve lifted off her forehead and taken flight; and then she’d sighed and said, "well, it ain’t a real worry for a few years yet", tousling his hair.

Scanlan shakes off the memory. "Anyways", he continues, sending a glare to Pike that doesn’t have any bite in it, "_Mr _Dranzel gave me the keys on 'count of me being awesome. I need to come here sometimes to practise, so."

"You play an instrument?", Vax asks, surprised.

"Well, flute’s the one I like best at the moment", Scanlan says, shrugging. "But Dranzel wants me to learn another soon."

Vax nods with something close to appreciation. "Not bad."

"Gee, thanks", Scanlan quips, already moving towards the whiteboard and Keyleth. "Hey, what’re we drawin’?"

He and Keyleth begin to paint a tiger among trees — her choice — while the other four settle loosely around the podium with the drumset to do their homework. Occasionally glancing over, Scanlan smiles as he sees Vex and Pike next to Grog, trying to explain long addition to him.

"It’s really just taking numbers up to ten", Vex says, scribbling something on her notepad, "and then you add them. So you can only get up to 20."

"And you can do that!", Pike adds encouragingly. "You’re safe up to 20!" Grog grimaces worriedly.

Scanlan turns back to the whiteboard, where Keyleth is currently carefully surrounding the tiger’s stripes with yellow marker. "So what about you?", he asks her, voice lowered, as he takes up the black marker and begins giving the tiger unnecessarily exaggerated eyes. "D’you still like the new kids?"

Keyleth glances at him with surprise. "Yeah", she says, like it should be obvious. "They’re nice."

Scanlan nods thoughtfully. "You don’t worry about them or anything?"

She frowns, halting in her drawing for a moment. "I don’t like what Vax says about the dad. He doesn’t sound nice. They never tell nice stories about him, just that he’s kinda mean sometimes."

"But the twins", Scanlan insists, though he takes care to keep his voice low enough that it only just reaches Keyleth’s ears. "They haven’t been, like, mean to you? When Pike and Grog and I weren’t around?" She shakes her head, wide-eyed. He relaxes slightly. "No. Okay. That’s good. I just wanted to make sure."

"You guys always notice when I feel bad", Keyleth says quietly. "And if they were mean, I would definitely feel bad. I don’t exactly keep secrets from you." Her eyes are still very wide, and she grabs at her wrists in that fluttering way of hers.

"No, I didn’t mean it like that", Scanlan sighs, handing her the green marker so she can fill in the tiger’s irises.

"Oh. That’s okay, then." She resumes the drawing. For a second, he just looks at her, one eyebrow raised; he listens to the two other girls encourage Grog to be confident about his solution, and he slowly smiles — just for himself.

When Scanlan glances around the room again, Vax is staring at him.

"Hey, broody boy", Scanlan says lightly as his stomach briefly turns into a cavernous pit for his heart to fall into. "’s there something on your mind?"

Vex looks up sharply, but Pike and Grog stay focused on their homework. Vax, for that matter, doesn’t move; his continuing stare is pretty unnerving, really, with the way that his eyes burn with equal parts anger and that strange kind of fear.

A few seconds pass; then Vax stands up jerkily. "Come outside with me for a moment", he says roughly. Scanlan shrugs and follows him; in passing, he glances at Vex, who looks extremely worried. He can’t help but silently agree with her, to an extent.

Just as the door falls shut behind Scanlan, Vax whirls around. "If you want me to leave you alone, you can just say so", he hisses through clenched teeth.

Scanlan opens and closes his mouth before he manages to say, "the fuck?"

"If you’re scared that I’ll be an asshole to Keyleth, then I can leave her and all of you alone", Vax repeats scathingly. "I don’t _need_ you guys, but Vex likes you for some reason, and — and I can just leave if you don’t want me with you, it’s whatever."

"You are — okay." Scanlan takes a half step back and raises his hand placatingly. "I was just asking Keyleth because —"

"I _get _it, okay?", Vax barks, and Scanlan looks around uncomfortably for anyone who might overhear and kick them out of the building. "I get nervous and angry and I say things that are mean, and we’re the poor kids from out of town, it makes _sense _for you to not — not trust _me_ —"

"You have to slow down", Scanlan says, slightly alarmed. Vax’ eyes are brighter than usual, and he’s not entirely sure, but it seems like the other boy is shaking.

"You’re all rich city kids, I don’t know what I expected", Vax continues, drawing one hand through his hair, and yeah, he’s absolutely shaking. "Just thought — nevermind though. Nevermind."

Scanlan blinks. "Did you just call me a rich kid?" Vax hesitates, and that’s answer enough. Scanlan stares at him. "That. Is fucking hilarious."

"What?"

"Dude", Scanlan says incredulously, "I’ve been on charity lunches for two years."

Now Vax frowns in earnest. "What?", he repeats lamely.

"Pike got in 'cause her grandpa works here", Scanlan continues unerringly. "Grog is an inclusion kid. Keyleth — okay, Keyleth’s a bit of a question mark, no clue what her dad does for a living — but I got in 'cause Dranzel recommended me. Dunno who you’ve been spending time with."

Vax hesitates. "I thought…"

Scanlan tilts his head to look up at Vax in consternation. "Jeez, kid. Don’t judge a guy by his fabulous cover, yeah?"

He doesn’t react to the joke, which Scanlan thinks is uncalled for. But he continues anyway. "And really, judging by the way you and Vexie are attached at the hip, I was thinking you’d understand a little protectiveness."

Vax seems to have shrunk before him, shoulders tucked in as he sighs. "Okay", he says quietly. Breathes. "Sorry."

"No biggie", Scanlan replies, squinting suspiciously at him. "You just have to. Well. Calm the hell down." Vax chuckles weakly. "Now go to the bathroom or something, or Grog’ll think we were out here kissing."

That, at least, earns a real laugh. "Gross", Vax murmurs with a minute smile as he turns to walk away, still looking somewhat dazed.

Scanlan waits for a moment, then he says, at a normal volume, "oi, Vax’ildan?"

The boy winces as he turns around. "Yeah", he murmurs simply.

"If you turn into an asshole, I will end you."

Vax raises his eyebrows. "You could barely reach to punch me."

"Oh, I didn’t say I’d beat you up", Scanlan says without batting an eyelid.

Vax raises his chin a little, appraising, and nods. "Understood."

Scanlan lets a second pass; then he breaks out into a wide smile. "Fantastic. Hurry back, we gotta make Grog play the flute before the bell rings. I swear, you haven’t _lived_ until that moment." And without another look, he turns and reenters the music room, leaving Vax outside as he shuts the door.

_That went well_, he thinks, walking across to the podium where Grog is still sitting, to drop down beside him on the floor. "'ey", he says, elbowing the larger boy in the side. He looks around for a moment to assure that the girls are out of earshot; and they are, working on homework underneath the piano. Keyleth’s doing, surely. "Guess what."

"What?"

"Vax just called me a rich kid."

Grog blinks, then breaks into uproarious laughter.


	24. chapter 22 - percy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percival de Rolo is struggling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> percy is a traumatised kid and it makes me sad y'all. but it's gonna get better!!! i promise!!! thank you for reading and comments make me happy

_— friday, 4th period —_

"R’member, kids", Mr Dranzel drones over the swell of voices in the art room, "you can paint whatcha want, don’t matter to me, but the topic is nature. N-A-T-U-R-E, don’t forget it. I ain’t eager to set a whole 'nother lesson aside just so half of y’all can redo your stuff, _Grog_."

A few giggles arise; judging from their voices, Percy guesses it’s Scanlan, maybe Lyra and Zahra, too. He doesn’t look up from his drawing pad, keeping himself acutely aware of the shape and texture of the pencil in his hand. The bumps below where his fingertips rest. The art room is cold, and in a very detached way, Percy is grateful for it; that makes it okay for him to wear heavy sweaters and keep his hands buried in his pockets.

"Alright, I guess, just— go wild, kids. Let your art hearts be free, I’ll sit 'round here if you have questions, but do try to, y’know, not…"

Percy draws.

_The forest stretches all the way around the city, up to the foot of the mountain and the manor grounds. Trees are sparse closer to the city, then rapidly grow into one massive labyrinth that goes on for miles and miles. He’s been informed by his parents, once, when they’ve had a glass of wine and they’re in the mood to smile good-naturedly as they tell easy stories, that every one of the seven de Rolo children believed for a time that the forest was all the world consisted of outside of Whitestone. Whitestone, their world. Whitestone, their universe…_

Percy stops.

His slightly swimming vision clears, and he looks at his sheet of paper. Trees have found their way there, growing along a narrow path. It’s not an incredible picture; he knows where his strengths lie, and they’re not with the artsy side of things. He can do technical sketches; that’s it.

Jarett leans over to see Percy’s sheet of paper, who twitches violently at the movement in his periphery. "I don’t know what to draw", he stage-whispers, "but I suppose trees is a good bet, no?"

"_Are _a good bet", Percy corrects without looking him in the eye. "Yes, I suppose so."

"Ya-a-ah", Jarett drawls. "But, y’know, Dranzel has pretty high standards, yeah? I don’t think just trees is gonna do it unless you do it _really well_. And." He shrugs. "You know."

Percy resists the urge to glare at Jarett as he retreats back to his own seat, wedges his tongue in between his lips, and nearly puts his nose to paper in an attempt to not meet Percy’s eyes. He’s right, to be fair, and Percy can nearly hear Professor Anders’ voice ringing in between his ears.

_"Now that’s just not going to do it, Percival, is it? You can do better. Try again."_

_"I’ve tried five thousand times already, it won’t go", Percy says grumpily. At his teacher’s raised eyebrow, he decides to direct his scowling gaze away from the man and towards the history textbook in front of him._

_He’s six years old, and his hands itch to hold a book again, a proper book, like the one about constellations that he keeps under his mattress up in his room. It’s got to stay hidden; his siblings would just take it away to tease him if they knew about it. And who knows if they’d mess it up? He shudders at the thought of any of his four younger siblings getting their hands on it, or, gods forbid, their crayons._

_"You’ve tried six times. If you want to be a scientist, Percival, these things should matter to you. Now tell me again, how and when did the Tal’dorei family rise to power?"_

Anna does not care much about their performance at school, neither his nor Cassandra’s.

Ironically, that makes it one of the very few things that he cares about, now.

The pencil marks begin to shape the outlines of a few birds in front of tree canopies, and then they move on to focus on leaves — hundreds of them on each tree. Technical, Percy thinks; all with the same structure, same lines, same internal design. There’s comfort in that.

Every now and again, he glances at the clock. By now, Cassandra will probably already be out of school. Anna picks his sister up from school at varying times every day. She tells the school that Cassandra has not yet been cleared to go to school full-time; she tells Percy, when the doors have been closed and the curtains drawn, that it’ll keep him from doing anything stupid.

Percy’s hand stops drawing. He finds himself regarding it like an alien thing, splayed out on white paper for analysis, for prodding and pushing until smaller parts come to light — bright neon-white light in a cold room, making silver gleam and glint, and Anna smiles —

Someone gives a surprised shout, and a thud booms through the room. Percy twitches again, violently, and his legs move of their own accord to bring him to his feet, away from Jarett, away from movement —

"_Vax_", a girl’s voice says exasperatedly, and Percy jolts back into clarity.

The dark-haired boy grumbles to himself as he gets up from the floor, his chair toppled behind him. The people around him are all looking at him with various levels of amusement. Keyleth is ducked down and rocking in her chair, probably startled by the noise, and Pike is comforting her in a quiet voice; Scanlan is still basically kneeling on the table, having cellotaped two sheets of paper together so he has more room to draw with his watercolours; Grog, the big one, is unabashedly laughing at Vax’ildan. Vex’ahlia, her hair tousled in its braid, just shakes her head and reaches out her hand to help him up.

It captivates him, this image, all the while sharp edges grind against his insides, and he gasps for air in flat, quiet breaths until the tunnel vision fades. With shaky legs, he moves himself back to his chair, surrepticiously shifting his chair further away from Jarett.

His eyes slowly and carefully informs his brain that his hand is still clutching the pencil tight enough for his knuckles to turn white. It takes much of Percy’s willpower to move it down to the paper again. _Draw leaves. _The lines take more jagged shapes now, but they stay in the picture, at least; they don’t make their way into his head, all poisonous, leeching.

His hands yearn for something to put together. Drawing is never enough, never. It’s too flat, doesn’t take shape, and Anna doesn’t let him do anything of substance — she’s got her own building to get up to, doesn’t leave time for his own. He almost laughs, and he feels a little mad for it.

Once, Percy fixed up an old walkman; not because he couldn’t have gotten a new one, but because he liked the challenge, and when he pulled apart the radio or went at the old tape recorder, Mother and Father got mad at him. He finished it just before Mr and Mrs Briarwood came to see them, and it was still lying on the living room table as the adults toasted with their first drinks. Anna had looked at it for a long time, turning it over and over, and he had been so proud.

Percy twitches as his pencil breaks through the paper in front of him. He stares at the broken graphite and the dark dust it leaves behind, rolling over the table.

He doesn’t add anything else to the picture until the bell rings.


	25. bonus III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The kids write an English assignment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'tis a lil interlude! hopefully it is enjoyable to y'all, i certainly enjoyed writing it a tremendous amount. all spelling errors are in character. thank you for any comments and kudos, it really keeps me motivated!

_Assignment_ _: Write a letter to a family member. You will not have to show these letters to anyone, not even me, but imagine you’ll really send them to the person for whom they’re intended! Write at least 200 words. — Ms Vysoren_

Dear Mum,

This is Vax’ildan writing. I hope you’re doing well, and I hope this letter gets to you quickly.

We have been going to school for around four weeks now. The school is okay. They have ellectives that you can choose from. I have Athletics and Vex’ahlia has Nature, which means that she learns to garden. <strike>Our father</strike> <strike>Dad</strike> Syldor makes us learn a lot of French, too. Vex’ahlia is very good at it, but I am not. There is a lot of homework, more then old Hennis made us do.

We have met some <strike>friends</strike> other kids at the school. They’re <strike>nice</strike> weird but Vex’ahlia likes them, so I am going to like them, too.

School is alright and I know that is very important. We are learning a lot. But we both miss you and I feel very alone sometimes. <strike>Dad</strike> Syldor does not like <strike>to talk to</strike> me very much. Vex’ahlia says that it is a bit my fault because I provouk him but he also says many mean things to both of us even though Vex’ahlia does everything he says.

I know that you think we will be better of here because <strike>Dad</strike> our father has more money then you but I would like to come home now. We always got by before and Vex’ahlia and I can also help you at work if you want. 

I miss you very much. Please write back to father’s address soon so we can talk about how we’re going to get home.

With love,

Vax’ildan

***

Dear Mum,

I am sorry that it has taken me so long to write to you like I promised, but we have been busy here in Westruun!

School is very nice. Vax’ildan and I get to learn French, there is a very big library and even a garden. Lessons start everyday at eight o’clock and usually end at quarter past four in the afternoon. Father picks us up every day after school so we do not have to walk home. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we stay at school until six o’clock to do our homework. On Mondays, Wensdays, and Fridays, there is a tutor that comes to the house to teach us more French. Father says it is very important.

Vax’ildan sometimes fights with Father, but they are starting to get along better. I am happy about that. The house where we live is very nice and we both have our own room. Everything is much bigger than we are used to, but very nice. Father is even going to take us to a dinner with other people from Syngorn this weekend!

I hope you are doing well. Vax’ildan and I miss you very much, but please do not worry about us. Father is taking care of us and I am sure we will settle in well soon.Vax’ildan and I hope to hear from you soon.

With love,

your Vex’ahlia

***

<strike>Hi Dad,</strike>

<strike>how are you, you old dirtbag? Thats what Mom calls you these days when she talks about you, but she doesnt do that a lot. I dont blame her really, because she doesnt have a lot of time with the job and my school stuff and the flat. Its a lot of work and she is tired often. Sometimes I wonder about what you do and where you are, but I dont think its very useful so I try not to do it. I know two kids whose dad is in politics, and he doesnt like them because</strike> This is a stupid assignment

[assignment left unfinished]

***

Hello J.B.!

I don’t know if you forgot about me after I left with Granpa. This is your cousin Pike <strike>Trickfoot</strike> and I just wanted to find out how you’re doing.

I miss you! I go to school where Granpa works and it’s very nice and I have a few friends, but sometimes I still want to go home to see you and maybe some other people. You would like my friends. One is called Grog and he is my very best friend because he is wonderful and kind. He’s also SUPER strong!!! I think he could even scare Uncle Ogden if he wants to!

Is school being ok for you? I hope you’re going even though Uncle Ogden doesn’t want you to kind of. If anyone in the family is ever bad to you you can always call Granpa’s Phone (202-555-0124) or you can come to this address: Temple Street 76, where we live. With we I mean Granpa and Grog and me. The 42 bus line stops right in front of the house. Granpa says it’s always ok if you come to us.

I hope you’re doing <strike>good</strike> well at home. Say hi to my Mom and Dad for me if you can.

Maybe see you soon!

Your Pike

***

Dear Mama,

Miss Vysoren says that letters are for telling people what you want to say to them without having to say words out loud. So that is what I’m going to do because I can’t talk to you at all right now but I can write a letter.

I’m in fourthgrade now and I was very scared but now it’s better. I still have the same friends in my class: Pike, Grog, and Scanlan. There’s also two new children in the class who are nice. I don’t know how to spell their names but this is what we call them: Vex and Vax. They’re twins but they’re very different because Vex is always careful but Vax is not.

Papa is alright but he misses you very much. I miss you very much too. I don’t think I remember as many things about you like Papa does so I think maybe he is even more sad. He says you will probably come home soon and then all of us can stay at home like it’s the holidays for a week.

I love you Mama. I hope you’re almost done with your big mission and ready to come home. When you’re back you can meet my friends and you can see the garden that I helped make at school.

Your daughter,

Keyleth

***

_Grog, you can write a little less. Please try for at least 100-150 words. —Ms Vysoren_

DEER WILHAND

HOW ARE YOU? I AM GOD. I AM SORY FOR WAKIN YOU UP ERLI THIS MORNIN BECUZ I HAD A NITE MEER. I WANT TO TEL YU I AM VERI HAPI THAT I CAN LIFE WITH YOU AND PIKE. YOU ARE VERI NICE TO ME EVIN THO YOU DONT HAV TO BE. PIKE IS MY BEST FREND AND I WIL AL WAYS PROTECT HER EVIN FROM UNCEL KEVDAK WHO IS MEEN SOME TIMS. PIKE SAIS YOU TOLD HER ABOUT THE BOKS CALD NARNIA AND NOW WE REED THE BOK AT SCOOL AND I LIK IT. THE KIDS FITE AGENST AN EVEL <strike>QEN</strike> <strike>QUIN</strike> <strike>KEN</strike> LADI. MOR THINGS SHUD HAV MAGIC BECUZ IT IS AWSUM. I HOP THIS IS ENUF WORDS.

SEE YOU AFTR SCOOL

GROG

***

_Miss Vysoren, Percival has come to me to express that for reasons confidential, he would much prefer to skip this assignment. I support his request for a replacement task that does not focus on family. Thank you. —W. Trickfoot_


	26. chapter 23 - grog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A slow Saturday morning for Grog and the gnomes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a bit of a filler chapter, but i felt like putting a bit of fluff in there before the next chapter, which i promise will compensate lol. thanks for any comments and kudos, it really keeps me motivated!

— _saturday —_

Scanlan rings their doorbell just before breakfast. Grog runs to open the door, picking the smaller boy up and carrying him to the breakfast table on his back. Pike cheers, Wilhand shakes his head good-naturedly and gets up for another plate. For a good half hour, the four of them sit around the kitchen table; and then Wilhand leaves to get groceries, so it’s just the three of them, loudly chatting and nearly yelling amongst each other.

Pike grabs three extra spoons, and they each get to sneak one heaping spoonful from the peanut butter jar. It makes Grog’s teeth stick together and coats his throat like oil, and he makes the other two laugh when he tries to gargle through it.

He can’t remember weekends like this from before he moved in with Pike. Weekends at the Strongjaw house were more of the _don’t ask, don’t tell_ variety. Grog would sneak off with Zanror to wander the neighbourhood, maybe get some fries if they could scrounge up the change, and maybe later Uncle Kevdak would come collect them because he had an errand to run.

Not as nice as this, Grog thinks to himself, and sneaks another half-spoon of peanut butter. Not as nice by a longshot.

"So when we’re done here", Pike says through a mouthful of jam — when did she get that? Grog immediately grabs for the jar — "we’ll go collecting nice leaves and stuff, yeah?" Scanlan nods. "D’you think we can go uptown? They have _proper playgrounds _in the parks over there, with no rust or anything!"

"What’s wrong with the parks here?", Grog protests.

"They’re sad and the leaves are always brown." Scanlan sagely nods. "My fellow short person is correct." Pike grins at him in satisfaction. "And Keyleth once ranted to me that they’ve got, like, the craziest flowers over there, 'cause no one ever steps on them."

"Yeah, they pro’lly don’t have a Zanror ’n his crew", Grog murmurs. He can’t help but feel a little pang of guilt at the memory of how the other kids in his family, or the adults for that matter, never took care to let something pretty stand. And Grog just thinks pretty things are nice sometimes; it’s the thought of Keyleth’s profound upset about trampled flowers that really gets him. She wouldn’t like his family, she really wouldn’t.

Pike’s eyes suddenly light up. "Oh — couldn’t we pick up Vex and Vax on the way?"

"Y’mean Grumpy and Madame Proper?" Scanlan wrinkles his nose, then pretends to actually have to sneeze when Pike glares at him. "Oof — excuse me…" He inhales, putting on a bright smile. "Sure, why not. That’ll be fun."

"I think they need to get outta the house", Pike says firmly. "And with other people. Where’s that telephone sheet? It’s got addresses too, right?"

Grog obediently gets up to rummage through their designated utility drawer, which is where they keep everything from rubber bands to scissors and oven mitts. Pike and Scanlan have turned once more to bickering behind him by the time he triumphantly pulls out a sheet of paper, already torn at the edges and folded several times. "Got it, guys", he calls over his shoulder, flattening the paper on the counter.

For a moment, he wants to call Pike over for this. Instead, though, Grog bites his lip, narrows his eyes, and focuses on the rows of names. The letters begin doing their _thing_, slowly swimming right and left and up and down. He squints harder, frustration welling up.

Scanlan has gotten up and stepped beside him without Grog even noticing, so he twitches when the smaller boy suddenly says, "The list’s alphabetical by first names. Remember where the vee-sound is?"

_Way in the back_. Grog shifts his attention to the lower half of the page, sets his index finger down to where he knows the first names are. Vee, he tries to visualise; that’s an easy letter, a triangle pointing down…

"Here!", he exclaims, relieved. "Pike, I got it —"

"Oh my _gosh_, good job!" She rushes up next to him and gives him a sidewards hug before he manages to blush beet red with embarrassment about his own excitement. "That’s awesome!"

"Northern Avenue, number 14", Scanlan reads out loud. "Oof, that’s _way _uptown,…"

"We were gonna go in that direction anyways, it’s alright. Plus, it makes sense, with their dad being a politician or whatever." Pike tilts her head, thinking. "There’s a bus that goes there, but we’re not leaving until Granpa comes back."

"Nice", Scanlan says appreciatively, turning to snatch up the peanut butter jar from the kitchen table. "We’re not even half-way done here."

***

A good half hour later, they are standing at the filigreed iron gates of a light-grey, two-story house in the fancy uptown district — lined up next to each other from big to small, like they always are — and none of them dare to breathe a word.

Grog is not the remembering-stuff guy in the group, but he’s pretty sure he’s never seen a house this… _big_ before. It’s like the thing oozes confidence, just like Grog’s old home with his dad and Uncle Kevdak oozed hostility in degrees. There’s a sort of garden out front that they’re staring at right now with a few bushes and trees, all of them looking like someone went over the leaves with a comb. Little grey pebbles, instead of grass, line the cobbled path to the porch and the front door.

It all looks very… fancy. Like a window that’s just been cleaned. Grog isn’t sure why it makes his stomach feel weird and uncomfortable.

Pike takes a deep breath. "Soooo", she says slowly, breaking the silence, "uh… who’s ringin’ the bell, you guys?"

"Not it."

"Not it."

"Aw, come _on_!" Pike grimaces at them with a weird mix of disappointment and anxiety. "You know, Wilhand tells you guys to take care o’ me when we’re out, but you’re not _nearly_ prince-in-shining-armour-y enough to match me."

Grog opts to respond with a smile that’s both as wide and as apologetic as possible, while Scanlan shrugs and murmurs something unintelligible. Pike sticks her tongue out at them, then takes another breath — and presses the doorbell.

Straining his ears, Grog picks up steps behind the door a few seconds before the jamb moves, and he elbows the others wildly to let them know. Scanlan’s mumbled protest is met with frantic shushing from Pike, and then the door opens.

It’s not Vex or Vax; nor is it the man Grog has seen in front of the school a few times, the dark-haired tall guy with a phone pressed to his face. Instead, the woman glaring out at them is Wilhand-aged, a dark tint to her skin that reminds him more of Vex and Vax than the sight of their father does, with light brown hair tied into a set of braids.

They all gape at her for a silent moment, locked in a staring contest of confusion. "Can I help you?", she finally asks, tersely.

"Oh! Yes, ma’am", Scanlan says quickly. Grog sees Pike push him forward out of the corner of his eye. "We were wonderin’ — we’re friends of Vax-and-Vex’s, and we were wondering whether they might wanna come outside with us."

"We were gonna go collect leaves at the park", Pike adds.

"Yes, and who are you?", Grog finishes.

"Grog!"

The woman eyes them suspicously. "Mr Vessar is out with the children", she says in lieu of replying to Grog’s question, which makes him frown. "And I know he wouldn’t appreciate you all coming by without announcement."

"Aw, sorry!" Pike smiles innocently up at her. "We really woulda called, ma’am, but we couldn’t find the number on the call sheet for our class! D’you know when they’ll be back?" As she talks, Grog peers past the woman into the corridor behind her. He spots a broad staircase in the back, a large blue rug spread over stone floor, and a little cart with what looks like cleaning supplies before she moves to block his view.

"I don’t know exactly, but I expect it’ll be after any of your bedtimes", the woman replies curtly. "Good day —"

"Well, my name’s Pike", she interrupts with another sweet smile. "And this is Grog and Scanlan" — they both wave — "so maybe you could just tell them we stopped by?"

Her eyes move across the three of them, probably trying to memorize their names, Grog suspects. "Certainly. Good day." She moves once again to close the door.

"Hey, ma’am, what’s your name?", Scanlan asks at the same time as Grog curiously inquires, "Are you the wife?"

"Boys!", Pike once again exclaims incredulously as the woman’s face tinges a sharp shade of pink.

"I’m the _housekeeper_, young man", she replies primly, "Mrs Dubois, not that it’s any of your _business_, and I do ask that you do not stop by unannounced in the future again. Good _day_." And the door closes with a click.

For a second, there’s nothing but stunned silence. Then, Scanlan murmurs, "well, we still don’t have the _number_ of this place, so it’ll be hard to _announce_ ourselves, now _won’t _it." Grog snorts.

"Let’s go", Pike says, pulling the two of them with her as she turns. "Did Vax tell you guys anything about going someplace this weekend?" They both shake their heads. "And Vex didn’t say anything either —"

"Wasn’t there something about going to a dinner in exchange for Afternoons?" Scanlan steps on the bed of pebbles, digging his heels into the ground. "Maybe that’s today."

Pike makes a dismayed sound. "Hope not. Vex was really worried about that."

_So was Vax_, Grog thinks. He bites his lip hesitantly, then decides against saying something. But he does cross his fingers behind his back for luck as he thinks about the twins, and the three of them saunter off to the park in this part of town that they so definitely don’t belong in. It’s strange, and he imagines that Pike and Scanlan laugh and talk just a little quieter than usual.

Grog immediately decides to compensate with his own volume. Someone’s gotta pick up the slack.


	27. chapter 24 - vax

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dinner happens. Things don't go well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey i'm slowly going mad in quarantine. hope y'all are doing okay, stay safe, and hope you'll enjoy this!
> 
> edit: oh my fucking god it autocorrected vax to max in the chapter title i’m,,,.,.,

_— saturday, late at night —_

Syldor is speeding.

Vax has his burning eyes fixed on the needle indicating kilometers per hour, shakily but steadily remaining around 110 even despite the accusatory-seeming street signs that claim 70 to be the limit. From time to time, his eyes flicker over to where his father’s hands keep a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel.

No one has spoken for the better part of thirty minutes since they’ve left the dinner.

_"You will remain with the other children at all times unless I tell you otherwise. You will be polite, you will keep quiet, you will not run around like fools."_

_Syldor’s eyes flick upwards in the rearview mirror to stare sharply at Vax, who scowls back before he goes back to grumpily staring at the road rolling by. He can’t imagine even Vex really blaming him. This is the third time Syldor has given this litany in the past hour._

_"You can socialise with whomever you please, but I do expect you to socialise. You will _behave_." His eyes dart between them, narrowed. "I will find out if you don’t."_

_"We’ve _got _it", Vax suddenly exclaims, throwing his hands upwards. "Gods’ sakes!"_

_"Do not curse at me, Vax’ildan." The grey eyes fixate on him again, piercing, and Vax once again scowls back._

Vax is vaguely aware that his sister is shaking slightly in the other seat, presumably from the cold — Syldor didn’t turn the heating on when they got in, and while Vax is merely highly uncomfortable in an awful grey suit and tie, the garment inflicted on her is a just-over-knee-length dress without sleeves to speak of.

But he can’t be sure the shivering is not something else. Anxiety, or sadness, or disappointment in him, it’s all so terribly possible. His heart is beating in his throat. Syldor’s anger is pervasive enough to taste in the air, like something bitter at the back of his tongue.

Vex slowly begins to pull her knees up to her chest, but barely gets half-way through before Syldor barks, "down!". Vax twitches along with her as she almost slams her feet back down, suddenly straight-backed, arms at her sides, but nothing else follows.

Tentatively, Vax puts his hand in the middle seat, closer to his sister, and when she glances over at him she has tears in her eyes. But she takes his hand and squeezes his fingers, and the relief feels heart-shattering to him.

The speed remains at a steady 70 even as city lights begin to fly by, and eventually, Syldor makes the SUV take the sharp turn into the driveway in front of the house. He brakes hard enough to make each of them fly just a few centimeters forward so the seatbelt cuts into their chests.

Syldor unbuckles his seatbelt. For a moment, he just sits there, appearing almost calm as the twins regard him from the backseat.

"I want to see both of you in my office in ten minutes", he says, then, quietly. "Vax’ildan, cleanyour face in the upstairs bathroom." Another second of silence. Then he gets up and out of the car, shutting the door behind himself with a small and definitive _clack._

Vex’ahlia breathes out loudly and leans forward to rest her forehead against the driver’s seat, pulling her hand from her brother’s in the same movement. Vax hastily unbuckles his seatbelt and scoots over to her, leaning into Vex’ side. He can feel her breathe like this, quick and flat, and it makes him feel more in his own body somehow.

"I’m sorry", Vax whispers. "I shouldn’ta done that, I —"

Vex doesn’t reply. Instead, she just shakes her head slowly against the seat as her body gradually relaxes, and reaches for Vax’ hand again.

_They have been staying in one large, many-windowed room for almost two hours, all of these diplomat’s children — and the twins. The two are sticking together, both terribly self-conscious, though Vex masks it by repressing all expressions of emotion where Vax puts on his stony scowl. There are two adults in the room, watching them; the kids refer to them dismissively as "nannies". The room is filled with the low chatter of some ten or fifteen voices._

_"Hey — Vessar!" The couch dips down to the side, and Vax nearly jumps to his feet before he realises it’s just another boy, having let himself drop down onto the cushions. "I was wondering when I would begin seeing you at these things."_

_"Hi, Constantin", Vax murmurs, and watches Vex’ eyes widen in understanding. Constantin Milier is in their French class, and Vax’ Athletics class. Sixth-grader, sure of himself, confident in French. A crooked smile on his lips, he looks at them, assessing._

They mutely climb out of the car, and Vax is glad to find the door still unlocked. "Hi", he murmurs to the woman holding it open — the maid, Syldor always calls her, but he’s not quite sure that’s a nice thing to say. She gives them a curt nod and closes the door behind them.

Together, they make their way to the upstairs bathroom, the one closest to their bedrooms. Vex silently takes her and Vax’ jackets and their shoes and puts them all in Vax’ room, then sits cross-legged on the toilet lid. Vax, for his part, stands in front of the mirror and cleans the dirt from his face with a small towel. The funny thing, he numbly thinks, is that Syldor will probably also yell at him for dirtying the towel.

"Did he get you?", Vex asks quietly. "I didn’t even really see, you were just instantly on the ground, the both of you were."

Vax grunts. "Not very", he murmurs, wiping at the dirt along his cheekbone. "Can’t punch too good, he can’t. All gooeybones."

His sister nods, then breathes sharply and _tsk_s. "We need to not talk like this when we’re in the office, remember that. Father doesn’t like that."

"What?"

"The… y’know, like we talk in Byroden. He thinks it makes us sound dumb." He turns to see Vex tugging at her skirt. "Told me that last week or so."

_"I’ll bet this is the nicest party you’ve been too, isn’t it?", Constantin says with a laugh, and Vax digs his fingers into the upholstery of the couch until his fingers hurt. Vex has left the room for the balcony to get some fresh air, and he can’t blame her._

_Another girl, standing with the three of them, chuckles, and he recognises her from French class, too — a fifth-grader; Lyanne Nessire is her name. Gods, do all of his father’s colleagues’ children go to one and the same damn school?_

_"By the way you look, at least", Constantin continues easily. "Where are you from again? Originally, I mean?"_

_"None of your business", Vax grits out._

_Constantin raises both eyebrows in surprise. "Alright. No need to be rude."_

_"I’m not the one being rude."_

_Vex appears as if out of nowhere, silently attempting to ground him by bumping into his side. "You should look outside", she says to him and only minimally trips over the words, "the garden’s quite pretty from the balcony."_

"So", Syldor says, cold and clipped as he rights papers on his desk. "Which one of you wants to explain the course of this evening to me?"

"Constantin was insulting us", Vax blurts out. "All the time! And he pulled the others in, Lyanne and — he was saying we couldn’t have seen anything this nice before 'cause of where we came from, and—"

"He was needling Vax", Vex adds, ferocity behind the words. "He was being awful all day, from the second we saw him, and no one ever said anything—"

"So your solution, Vex’ahlia", Syldor interrupts, "would also have been to viciously attack the boy?"

"No, I just —"

"You just _what_?" He leans forward onto his forearms, eyebrows somehow simultaneously furrowed in anger and raised in incredulity. "_What _would you have done, Vex’ahlia? Are you going to lead your brother by better example? Do you happen to know what is wrong with _your_ brother? Can you help me here, Vex’ahlia?"

She opens her mouth, but no sound comes out. Vax nearly feels nauseous with shame and anger. "Shut up", he croaks. "This isn’t about her —"

"Then what is it about?" Syldor raises his voice, _finally_, a part of Vax thinks vaguely, even as his heart begins rabbiting in his chest. "What is it that moves you to remain a petulant child, even as you have every opportunity handed to you to be _better_?"

_The children are sitting on a few benches around a large tree, chatting and giggling amongst themselves. Vax and Vex have been shepherded along by the chaperones, so they’re awkwardly, uncomfortably, fidgeting as they sit shoulder to shoulder. Vax is slouching. Every now and again, Vex elbows him in the side and he begrudgingly sits up a little._

_"Stop it", she murmurs to him. "You’ll—"_

_"I’ll what? Wrinkle my jacket? Come on, Vex, we both know you’re not that stuck-up." She huffs in annoyance, but she cannot fight off a small smile, either._

_"…hear about Thalia Evin’s new boyfriend? He’s in _secondary _school…" — "…new housekeeper. We …" — "… taking in _outside _people —" Vax forces himself to tune out from the chatter, instead mouthing the word "boring" to Vex, who begins to grin in earnest._

_"What about you, Vessar? Vex’arla?" His head whips up along wth his sister’s, the ounce of cheer gone entirely; it’s Lyanne who’s spoken, the fifth-grader. She’s smiling, but it’s strangely deceptive-looking. "D’you ever kiss a boy in that village you’re from?"_

_More snickering arises from the group, and Vax feels his blood begin to boil. Constantin leans forward, a smirk on his face. "Oh, don’t tease her, Lyanne, you know no respectable boy would—"_

_"Shut the fuck up", Vax hisses. A few snickers and quiet "oooh"s arise, and though his ears heat up, he does his best to ignore them. "You can’t talk to her like that."_

_"Vax, leave it", Vex murmurs, her tone carefully dismissive._

_"Yeah, Vax, leave it", Constantin says, grinning. "Now there’s the language I was expecting of you, Vessar…"_

_Vex stands up abruptly. "You have no idea what you’re talking about", she says coldly. Her spine is perfectly straight, her hands balled into fists at her sides. "You couldn’t recognise a proper way to talk to girls if it screamed at you in French."_

_Constantin’s face turns beet red, and he rises from his seat as well. "Listen, you country crone —"_

_Vax almost instinctively sticks his leg out as Constantin takes a few steps forward, and Vex takes a step backwards like she’s dancing out of the way of his falling form. The boy calls out in surprise, falling to his knees; Vax snorts in something like delight._

_And then, Constantin moves towards him quicker than expected, quicker than he can see — he’s knocked off the bench and twists out of the way of a fist — Vex screams "don’t!" and someone else yells "stop it this instant!" —_

Despite all of his willpower forcing them down, Vax feels tears begin to prick at the back of his eyes. "We want to go back to Mum", he presses out. "You don’t even want us here. Why did you take us away?"

Syldor stills. Breathes as he leans back into his desk chair. _No_, Vax thinks desperately; there’s nothing for him to hold on to when the anger fades, nothing to help him figure out what he is supposed to do.

"I will not", he says quietly, "explain myself to two… children."

Vex keeps silent even as Syldor folds his hands on the desk and stares at his twiddling thumbs, considering. Vax looks over to her, looks for anything, any way at all for him to find a pathway through this awful not-knowing. But she doesn’t look at him, just keeps her lips pressed tightly together. There’s the beginnings of tear tracks down her cheeks.

Syldor draws in air and leans forward again. "Neither of you will be going to the Afternoons programme for the next two weeks. Monsieur Tarnisse will be coming by the house daily, since evidently, you both still need tutelage in basic etiquette." Vax bites his lip so hard he tastes blood; in his mind, he sees hours and hours unroll in this house, unending. "Vax’ildan, until further notice, you are to stay in your room except for school and mealtimes, and I’m having all of the books, toys, anything of the sort removed. Some time to think about what you should be appreciating in this house might do you well."

Vax scoffs weakly. _Sure_, he wants to say, _go ahead_, but all he feels is numbness — no urge to rile up his father, to protest, to argue his case.

Syldor fixes each of them with a sharp gaze for a few seconds before he brings his palm down on the desk, making both children twitch slightly. "Go to your rooms. Vax’ildan, I expect you to get up early tomorrow to help the maid set the table." Another quick glance at both of them. "You may leave."

Vax bites his already-bleeding lip once again, the sharp twang of pain pulling him back into his own consciousness, and moves to turn around. When Vex doesn’t appear to be doing anything similar, he reaches for her hand silently to pull her along. She briefly resists; he whispers, "come on"; she jolts, then moves her legs like she’s just remembering how to walk.

The office door falls shut behind them. The twins share a look, then quietly make their way over to Vex’ room, hands clasped tight, only letting go long enough for Vax to dart off into his own room to grab his ratty sleep-shirt. There’s a set of neat grey pyjamas in his wardrobe, of course, exactly his size; but this shirt, he imagines, still has the memory of Byroden clinging to it. Maybe.

He changes, then darts over to his sister’s room on his tiptoes. Vex is already buried under her blankets, and, avoiding the odd creaking floorboard, he climbs onto the bed and curls up next to her, back to back.

"He’s right, you know." Vex’ voice is still brittle. "We’re nothing but disappointments to him."

Vax wants to argue, wants to defend them, but he remembers that look in Syldor’s eyes. The anger, the detachment, all of it — the dull dismay at the way his new household accessories unexpectedly misbehave.

"Yeah", he murmurs. "Yeah, I know."

Vex exhales shakily. "I’m goin’ to try to fix it, but you need to be…"

"Quieter? Easier? Better?"

A small, helpless silence. "Yeah."

Vax curls in on himself a little more, knees to his chest. "Okay."

"Really?"

He chuckles weakly. "Well, I’ll try my very best, Stubby, but I do ask you to remember that I’m, you know, just one person with limited patience —"

She kicks him in the thigh. "Shut up." And then, in a much smaller voice: "Thanks. For trying."

Vex drifts off to sleep eventually; it’s way past their usual bedtime, anyways. Vax forces himself to stay awake until he hears slow steps make their way from the office to the upstairs bedroom. Then finally, he lets his eyes close.


	28. chapter 25 - keyleth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keyleth wonders if she knows the twins, truly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's beginning to look a lot like percy-backstory time babey......... thank you for any comments and kudos, i appreciate it massively! and i hope you're holding up okay during this time.

_— monday, 1st period —_

"Can you sing it again?"

Keyleth’s father sighs, keeping his eyes on the road. "You must’ve heard it a good ten times yesterday. Haven’t you had enough, _louloute_?"

"Just 'cause you’re driving me today! This’s never happened before", Keyleth argues, her hands flapping lightning-fast by her sides. Yes, she is exaggerating a little bit — her dad drives her to school whenever he can — but she isn’t faking her excitement.

"Do you have all of your things?", Korrin asks, mock-serious. "All of your homework?" Keyleth nods vigorously. "Did you pack the book?"

"Ye-es!"

Her father sighs once again, but with a smile this time. "Alright then."

So Keyleth pulls her knees to her chest and happily fidgets with the seatbelt taut across her chest as Korrin finally begins singing the _Misty Mountains_ song in a low voice. It’s from the book she’s reading for Library class. She loves the simple melody that her father has given the words; she loves the vibrating hum of his voice.

Once they reach the school, Keyleth says goodbye to her dad, then grabs her backpack out of the trunk. Walking towards the main building and what’s become the customary meeting spot for their little group, she keeps humming the _Misty Mountains_ song. Her heart feels like it’s smiling as her eyes dart across the schoolyard, from the jungle gym across colourful sneakers on asphalt to the small copse of trees. It’s a good day.

When she gets closer to the stone benches underneath the thin-branched trees planted by the front windows, Keyleth risks looking up for the first time. Pike waves at her, then resumes jumping across the unoccupied benches with Grog and Scanlan; the twins, however, are one unmoving brown-haired, blue-coated entity, one of them resting their head against the other’s shoulder.

"Hey", Keyleth says in a stage-whisper once she’s close enough for them to potentially hear. Vex looks up and gives her a quick smile, careful not to jostle her apparently sleeping brother off-balance. Keyleth sits down a few feet away from them, folds her legs underneath her, and contently begins to fiddle with her stimming bracelet.

The other three kids jump the gaps between the benches a couple more times before Pike and Grog bump into each other in mid-air, knocking each other to the ground with synchronised _oof_s. The worst that comes from it is skinned palms and a torn knee in Grog’s jeans. After that, they settle down a little more, all of them wincing, since Grog took Scanlan with him on his way down.

"That was _so_ your fault", Scanlan grumbles, rubbing his right elbow. Keyleth winces in sympathy while Grog protests.

"Can you quiet the hell down?", Vax murmurs, voice muffled by his sister’s jacket. "I’m doing my damndest to sleep here."

"Ain’t bedtime yet, buddy", Grog says with a grin as he shakes out his leg.

"Aw, go to hell." Vax sits up slowly, blinking moodily into the light. One of his ears is bright red, and his hair is a mess; Keyleth’s fingers flick up to her own to braid it reflexively.

"Why are you two so sleepy, anyway?", Pike asks curiously. "What’d you do all weekend?"

"We went to that… dreadful dinner that I traded Afternoons for", Vex says, rubbing her eyes. "It didn’t go well. That’s all. Okay?"

Pike’s eyes widen a little. "Alright."

"D’your dad get mad, or what?", Grog asks, voice low. "What’d he do?"

"We’re not allowed in Afternoons for the next two weeks, and I’m on room arrest whenever we’re not at school", Vax sullenly intones. "Anything fun has been removed from my room. This morning, the maid dragged me out of bed at five o’clock to help with chores. Yes, he’s mad, and he’s trying to bore me to death as punishment."

Keyleth taps her wrist, one-two one-two one-two, biting at her lip. She’s not prone to taking her own opinion for fact, but everything Vax just listed — it sounds like too much, too much for one thing. When Keyleth messes up, her dad talks to her about it and maybe makes her take a time-out. Vax’ list sounds… different.

"We messed up, Vax, stop denying that", Vex says quietly. Her brother makes a dismissive noise and rubs his ear.

"That sounds like a pretty bad reaction", Pike replies carefully. "Your dad is… really not nice, is he?"

"Well, at least you’re a ray of goddamn sunshine", Vax snaps.

Keyleth twitches at the sudden hostile tone, and Grog rises to his full height, but Vex just waves tiredly. "Ignore him, he’s just being an idiot. Vax, stop cursing. Please."

Vax maintains grim eye contact with her for another few seconds, then breathes out loudly as he turns to stomp away. Pike makes a startled sound, but by the time she can form words again, he’s already several meters away.

"What was that about?", Scanlan asks carefully. Keyleth, for her part, doesn’t even try to speak, just sits bolt upright, tracking everyone with her eyes; it dizzies her, her darting gaze in time with her suddenly fluttering heart.

Vex just buries her head in her hands.

***

The following one and a half hours of Religion class pass like tree resin from the broken branch in Keyleth’s backyard.

She sits at her desk and twists her thumbs, absently pulls at her bracelets, fiddles with the sleeve of her shirt, all the while Father Reynal crones on and on about the prime deities and their influence on their domains. She perks up when there’s mention of the Wildmother and her guardianship over nature and wilderness; but her attention quickly wanders again.

Keyleth really, very badly, wants Vax to not be secretly mean.

The handful of minutes they spent together with the twins before class keep replaying in her head. It’s futile, she knows; people’s behavior is near-impossible for her to interpret correctly, her nine-and-a-half years of life have taught her that much. But the twins both seemed _nice _— a little nervous, maybe, and a little confused, but she supposes that’s reasonable considering they’ve just moved towns, and she doesn’t want to have been that wrong.

What would that mean, she wonders, if she couldn’t even get that much right?

Keyleth bites her lip and begins carving a flower into her desk with her thumbnail.

"Sorry, Father Reynal?" Pikes bright voice cuts through Keyleth’s brooding, and she looks up. "I don’t think that’s all the gods, though!"

Father Reynal frowns and looks back at the blackboard. "These are the Prime Deities, not all the gods in existence."

"What does _prime_ mean?", Pike asks with a frown.

"Well, I commend you for asking this question after one hour of listening to me talk about them", Father Reynal says drily. "It truly speaks to your attentive listening skills." Pike’s nose twitches, and Keyleth has to smile, because she knows that Pike is just barely suppressing a grimace. "Does anyone want to help Miss Trickfoot?"

For once, Lyra is not the first one to respond, because she’s busy staring at that fifth-grader she likes, Aldor. It’s Odessa who answers instead. "Prime means that they’re the most important", she explains. "And also that they’re very powerful." Father Reynal nods.

Pike frowns. "But that can’t be all of them", she says. "Sarenrae isn’t on there, and she’s _super_ powerful. My granpa told me that she — she helps everyone, and she lets people learn from their mistakes — and I think that’s very important, isn’t it?"

"It is", Father Reynal agrees. "But I’m sure your grandfather has also told you that there’s not many people who follow her, not many temples or regular services in her honour —"

"But that doesn’t mean she’s not important!", Pike protests. "And she also, she gives us sunlight, and she says to be kind—"

"But Pelor’s the one who’s about sunlight", Aldor butts in. "There can’t be _two_ gods in charge of one thing, that’s not how it works."

"Not necessarily, Mr Echas", Father Reynal says, contemplating, before fixing him with a slightly icier look. "And do raise your hand before remarking upon your classmate’s discussion. Miss Trickfoot, you do make a good point." He nods to Pike, who looks equal parts startled and elated. "Many religious scholars do consider her a Prime Deity, although she is more commonly referred to as the Everlight… and I admit my own faith may have influenced my judgment."

"What’s your faith, Father Reynal?", one of the second-graders asks curiously.

He raises an eyebrow at her, and after a moment of contemplation, she raises her hand sheepishly. To Keyleth surprise, he smiles at that. "You should know that some people take offense to that question when it is unprompted and comes from someone they don’t know, so be tactful with it. Not to worry, though", he hurries to reassure, "I’m happy to talk about my faith — especially in this class."

He takes a brief pause to survey the room. It’s quieter than it’s been all lesson, and even Keyleth finds herself leaning forward to listen.

"I think I should note", he begins slowly, "that my reverence of one particular god does not mean that I reject all others. All of the deities have their domains, their areas of influence, as we’ve said earlier. Before I came to Westruun, I lived in a small township much farther north. Legend says it was by Pelor’s grace that this town came to be, and it was by Pelor’s grace that it persisted." Father Reynal pauses, then shrugs lightly, a small smile curling around the edges of his mouth. "In the cold, one can hardly help worshipping the sun."

"Why’d you leave there?", the same second-grader asks in a near-whisper.

Father Reynal sighs, and he doesn’t even berate the girl for not raising her hand. "Awful things happened there", he says, his voice uncharacteristically low. "People came to town who did not have… any true god’s interest at heart. They corrupted the town, forbade worship of Pelor, and… I had to leave." Another pause, and when he speaks again, it seems like he’s talking more to himself than to the class. "I had to leave to protect what was taken."

For several seconds, there’s perfect silence throughout the room.

Pike hesitantly speaks up. "That sounds awful, Father Reynal", she says, carefully. "I’m really sorry that happened."

Father Reynal looks up, sending a tired smile Pike’s way. "Thank you, Miss Trickfoot." He straightens. "I think we shall end this lesson a little early, yes? No homework today. Off you go."

As the room erupts into rumbling voices and the noise of shuffling books, Keyleth remains stock still in her seat. Father Reynal _never_ gives no homework; but he also never talks about himself, or ends class early, so maybe he’s just having an off day? She watches him sit down behind his desk, sorting through papers with his head lowered.

"Come on", Pike says quietly, knocking her knuckles against Keyleth’s desk. "Let’s go outside."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> louloute -- little wolf


	29. chapter 26 - vex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fallout of Syldor's anger... has an impact. Vex'ahlia adjusts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some twin angst. some twin fluff. am i projecting my experience with childhood high-functioning mental illness onto vax? no, you are.  
i'm really sorry about the delay, life is so weird and my brain consists almost entirely of swiss cheese. there might be some more delays in the future, but i will keep going on this thing. hope you like this chapter. comments brighten my day! stay safe y'all

The days pass agonizingly slowly.

They go to school, attend their classes. Vax doesn’t apologise to Pike, and she doesn’t ask for an apology. Vex doesn’t quite know how she feels about that, except terribly anxious. When no one has said or screamed anything by Tuesday lunch, she forces herself to take a breath and give everyone a hesitant smile. It’s reciprocated, and that is that. It has to be.

Syldor picks the twins up from school and takes them back home, where they are to immediately do their homework at the kitchen table. One hour later, the doorbell rings, and they are called to the downstairs sitting room. Monsieur Tarnisse, a rotund man with light gray hair tied back into a tight bun, has them study and practise their French for another hour, then taking thirty minutes to look over and correct their French homework, if there is any.

After the French lesson, Vax shuffles off to his room; Vex isn’t explicitly told to do so, but whenever she lingers downstairs, she’s at an utter loss for what to do. Even if she could read the books on the shelves, the rooms feel profoundly empty; sometimes, Mrs Dubois bustles through the room, or a person passes through as they’re cleaning, and Vex just has no idea how to act around these people who _work_ for her _father_, that’s just _strange_! So she does always end up in her room, or very carefully sneaking into Vax’ room.

By Wednesday, Vex is painfully aware that her brother is in acute danger of going mad from boredom. Syldor didn’t exaggerate; by the time they had gotten back from school on Monday, Vax’ room had been stripped completely bare. Books, blank sheets of paper, pencils, the chest of toys that even Vex struggled not to joke about — all gone, and Vax is left driving up the walls.

After dinner, Vex finds Vax lying on the ground in his room, legs up on the bed, fingers threading through his own hair and pulling at it erratically. His eyes are scrunched close, lips pressed together tight. She sits down next to him wordlessly, putting one hand on his belly, and waits.

It takes several minutes for Vax to break. It announces itself softly, in the growing tension in his muscles and the moving of his jaw, then in the way his hands turn into fists and the tugging at his hair becomes constant. Just when Vex begins to worry that he might tear out the strands, Vax lets go, slams his fists down hard on the floor, and begins to scream.

Vex sits there, legs folded, and listens to her brother. After a few seconds, he breathes in deeply and screams again, this time hammering down on the floor with his fists at the same time. When he finishes, he’s breathing heavily, and Vex tactfully ignores the tears gathering at the corners of his eyes.

That is the moment when anger starts to build in Vex’ stomach. But she doesn’t know where to go with it, so she just decides to at least sneak _Ronia the Robber’s Daughter _back into her brother’s room; she takes it from his backpack at school, keeps a straight face as Syldor confiscates anything that isn’t textbooks from Vax.

Their father prefers for them to keep silent during dinner unless he starts talking to them, so the twins quietly eat their soup until Syldor clears his throat. Vex tenses.

"Well, Vax’ildan", Syldor begins, spoon still in hand, looking around Vax, but not _at _him. "I wonder if the consequences from Saturday might already be sinking in. Do you care to say anything about that?"

Her brother puts his spoon down, staring at his plate. "Yeah", he murmurs.

"Just… _yeah_? Nothing else?" Syldor raises an eyebrow. "Nothing about your actions that evening at the country house, or…"

"I shouldn’t have done that, I’m an awful person, I hate myself. Is that better?", Vax spits.

"Don’t be dramatic." Syldor takes another spoonful of soup, swallows it. "But I am glad that the rest of the lesson appears to be sinking in."

Vex reflexively bites down on her spoon hard enough to hurt, bracing herself for the impact of Vax’ reaction… but it doesn’t come. A few seconds of frozen silence pass; then Vax pushes his plate away, gets to his feet, and quietly leaves the room.

And that — that is the worst thing.

That is when Vex decides that she hates her father.

After dinner, she goes upstairs, grabs the book from her room, but almost on their own, her hands continue. She pulls on a sweatshirt with more force than would truly have been necessary, slips into a pair of entirely unseasonal shoes, and even finds a pair of gloves in her sock drawer.

Vax is lying on the floor when Vex opens the door to his room, and he looks up with tired eyes to the furious mask that is her face. She closes the door with forced care, then whirls around to him again. "We’re getting out."

Her brother gets to his feet, swaying slightly. "What’d you mean? Are we running away?"

"No", Vex says after a blink of hesitation. "That’s still a stupid idea. But you’re getting outside if it’s the last thing I manage to do in this house, and if he sends me back to Mum for that, then I’ve got a two-for-one, don’t I?"

"I don’t think there’s anything that would make him send us back", Vax replies softly, pushing his hair back from his face. He breathes in as if he wants to add something else, but nothing follows.

"There’s a park down the road", Vex says when he stays silent, grabbing one of the pairs of shoesin front of his wardrobe and tossing them to him. "We’re going there, I’m gonna race you to the top of a tree, and I might just scream into the ground for a little bit. We’ll be back by eleven. It’s not like anyone checks on us after dinner."

Vax watches her as she speaks, a look of fondness spreading across his face. "And here I thought you were going to fit in around this place."

She hugs him. Actually, she more or less tackles him, slings her arms around his body, and holds him so tightly that Vax gives a small gasp. There’s tears burning at the corners of her eyes, and anger in her stomach, so she hugs her brother as close as she can. "You are not an awful person", she says firmly, muffled by his shoulder. "And… and you shouldn’t hate you. _I_ don’t hate you."

He hugs her back, slowly, and they stay like that for a minute. Vex lets her anger cool until it’s just simmering, and almost feels like something else entirely.

Finally, she lets go of Vax. "Come on, then", she says, wiping at her cheeks quickly. "We need to decide how to get out."

"Oh, I know how to do that. We just jump from your window to the tree in front of it, from there to the roof of the shed, and then we get down." Vax shrugs. "The rest is just going through the hedges until we find the street."

She stares at him. "How much have you thought about this?"

He huffs a laugh, shrugs again. "Quite a bit. Would’ve tried it out, too, but you asked me to be good, so…"

Vex doesn’t really know what to say in response to that, so she just turns away as Vax puts on his jacket and ties up his shoes. Carefully, she scouts out the hallway, making sure that Syldor is still downstairs and occupied with some sort of phone call. It really feels like a spy mission, waving him through, but at the same time, the air feels ever more oppressive the longer they’re inside, and it leaves her… straining, somehow.

The window doesn’t creak as they climb out. Of course they don’t; nothing in this house creaks, or is lopsided, or has been fixed up in any way that could even vaguely remind them of home. Vax goes before her, being lighter on his feet than she is, and Vex doesn’t miss the way he tests every bit of the branch he stands on with his weight before waving for her to follow.

That is what stops her being scared, in the end. Her brother’s grin gleaming in the dark and his quiet whispering, "come on, come _on!_", even as the wind picks up and he clings to the tree trunk for dear life. They stay out of the light and get on their hands and knees to crawl underneath the hedge until they reach the street; Vex exits first, brushes twigs from her hair, then pulls Vax out behind her.

It’s a dashing escape, Vex thinks, dizzy with relief, it really is. And they giggle breathlessly, holding onto each other as they run down the street.

They only slow down once they’re several hundred metres down the street. "Think anyone saw us?", Vax whispers to her, and Vex shakes her head and pushes her hair out of her face.

"Don’t think so, they would’ve caught us by now", she whispers back. "Don’t — step into the streetlights, though, the neighbours —"

They are both coiled tense right until the park gates come into view. Communicating with urgent gestures, Vax boosts Vex over the fence before rolling over himself. She doesn’t miss his wince as a spike digs into his stomach, but since he says nothing about it, she lets it go.

Soft waves of fog are spread over the greenery around them, sending a shiver down Vex’ spine as she looks around. The neat gravel path leading through is still visible, though, and the metal silhouettes of playground equipment rise in the distance.

Vax elbows her in the side, and when Vex looks over to him, he has that devilish grin on his face. Her knees nearly give in from relief.

"Race you to the swings?" She brings herself to nod. "Then _go!_"

And the relief is gone. "Hey, that’s — damn!" Vex takes off, following her brother’s giggling through the mists. There’s a glee growing in her heart in time with her feet hitting the floor as she runs as fast as she can, suddenly feeling again like she did in Byroden — light and careless, with somewhere to come home to.

Unlike Vax, she sticks to the path, though; she’s not brave enough for that, not with the mist and the darkly shadowed trees around her. Even as she sees a silhouette dart through the trees to the side that, in the pale lantern light, looks almost to bright-haired to be her brother; even as the figure unexpectedly crosses into her path —

Vex reflexively yelps a millisecond before she collides with a shape that is much too sharp-edged, much too unfamiliar to be her brother. The impact of the figure knocks her off her path, leaving her careening and painfully impacting on her right arm, side, and shoulder with a choked gasp.

She pushes herself up as quickly as she can, but freezes in place once she sees the person — the _kid_ — lying a few steps away from her.

"_Percival_?"


	30. chapter 27 - percy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy had not thought he would meet anyone here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm so very sorry for the delay, again. i can't promise that next chapter will be quicker, though, since i've been struggling to write a good version of it for literal months, and i'm also doing my BA thesis at the same time. however! i reiterate i'm not giving up on this thing. hope you enjoy, and i do appreciate all comments and kudos. stay safe <3

He twists around instinctively even as he is falling, trying to hit the ground with as little of his body as possible. Still, when his back hits the floor, it immediately reignites old bruises, and he gives a strangled sound of pain as he curls in to protect his head.

"_Percival_?"

Percy hums noncommittally, slowly uncurling, not even finding it in himself to be particularly surprised that the, judging from the voice, girl seems to know his name. "Yes — I —"

"Oh — are you okay?" A beat of silence, then gravel shifting, and there’s a small hand touching his shoulder. Percy scoots back with a jerk and sits up in the same movement, getting his eyes accustomed to the darkness once more.

"It’s, uh, Vex’ahlia", she says tentatively, just as he recognises her and breathes a small sigh of relief. "From school. Are you okay?"

"I’m alright", Percy replies, trying to calm his racing heart. There’s never been anyone at the park with him in the middle of the night, never. "How’re — you —"

"Oh, your cheek is bleeding! Did you fall on your face? I’m so sorry!" Vex’ahlia reaches out and puts her hand on his shoulder, eyes glinting worriedly. "My brother is over by the swings, let’s — go over there, okay? I don’t want him to worry…"

Percy gets to his feet slowly as he wipes blood off the side of his face with the back of his hand. He doesn’t say that the cut itself has only been reopened, that it most definitely was not just the fall. "Alright. Are you —"

"I’m fine, just —" She winces, moving her arm gingerly as she slowly starts walking. "Ouch."

Percy doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just follows her. Under his clothes, he can feel these new bruises layering over old ones, bones knocking against skin with every move. A detached part of his brain is glad for the dim light that renders the bright red mark on his neck from where Anna grabbed him near invisible.

"'ey, Stubby, hurry up, will you!", someone else calls out — Percy twitches, then remembers that Vex’ahlia has a twin.

"Shshsh", she hisses loudly. They turn the last corner of the winding path, and the playground comes into view, well-illuminated as always. A small silhouette perches on top of the slide. "Vax, I found Percy", she calls out softly.

"Who the hell’s Percy — oh."

Vax’ildan’s dark shape slides down to the floor, and a few seconds later, he appears from the darkness directly in front of Percy, head tilted in wary curiosity. "What’re you doing here?"

"What are _you_?", Percy responds, raising an eyebrow. On better days, he would make better use of English grammar, and that same detached part of his mind admonishes him for it. But it is late, and he is tired, and though he has long dropped the habit of keeping count of all the little hurts that come from Her, he knows today is not a good day.

Some days, it’s better not to think the name. He’s found that out recently.

Vax’ildan just shrugs, eyeing Percy up and down. "Fair point." He holds out his hand. "I won’t tell if you won’t."

Percy almost laughs. He grabs the other boy’s hand. "Alright", he says. "If you must put it like that."

Vex drily clears her throat."Oh-kay then."

"Catch me on three", Vax’ildan says to her suddenly, leaping backwards. "One, two —" Vex looks at Percy with a slight smile and rolls her eyes, but at her brother’s "three!", she jumps into motion, darting after him. All that remains is the ghost of a giggle — and Percy, standing uselessly in the darkness.

_When they were babies, he didn’t really see what was so special about Whitney and Oliver. Twins, Mother and Father said; that’s rare in this family! But all babies looked the same, anyways — not only Whitney and Oliver, but all his other siblings he had seen being babies, as well. The only special thing was that there was twice as much noise in the house, compared to the other times new babies arrived._

_It was different once they got older, though. Percy studied their small faces sometimes, noting the way their bones were two of the same and if they hadn’t been wearing different colours, maybe he couldn’t have told them apart. Or perhaps that was just what Mother and Father always said._

_They did stick together, thinking about it now, more so than the rest of them. Percy remembers rare pangs of jealousy whenever all of them were fighting with each other, but Whitney and Oliver were still thick as thieves. He remembers thinking it had to be nice, having another person — always having someone with you, never so terribly alone…_

When the park gathers back into his awareness, Percy absently registers he has tears in his eyes. He wipes them away without a second thought; Anna doesn’t like him crying. But his chest hurts badly again, even though none of Her damage is focused there today, so why…

Digging his fingers into his hip and the marks that still remain there, Percy forces himself back into control. Maybe he should go, he thinks; he has no place here. Not while the twins run around giggling, laughing, living in a way he wishes he could.

But he did bring a book. So Percy clutches its hard and pointy shape where it sits in the inside pocket of his jacket, and makes himself trot over to a bench at the edge of the playground. The metal lining the bench is ice-cold, but he barely even notices once he’s pulled his legs up to sit criss-cross. He fidgets for a while before he’s able to settle, and then some more to actually get both book and flashlight out of his jacket.

It’s much too cold for him to be outside, he muses as his eyes begin to glide over the page.

So be it.

While reading, Percy tries to give about a quarter of his attention to Vex’ahlia and Vax’ildan, noting when they stop playing tag and tumble over each other racing to the swingset. They don’t pay him much mind apart from a few quick glances, and he’s glad for it. For a second, he allows himself to wish he could’ve taken Cassandra; and when the second is over, he bans it from his mind.

It’s just that it is so very pointless to wish. Climbing out of his own room in the cellar with its ground-level window is not a major task (_on most days_, he doesn’t think); but Cassandra sleeps in the room right next to Hers — another safety precaution to keep Percy from doing anything stupid. And if she ever got out without alerting their guardian…

Well, suffice it to say that Percy would not waste their time walking to the playground.

_"Now look what the cat dragged in", Anna drawls, and before Percy can even react, her hand is clamping down on his neck, pushing his head down. "I found your extracurricular work today! You shouldn’t have…"_

_Panic seizes him like an iron vice. "I don’t know", he gasps, trying on instinct to bend away from her, but her fingers are digging into his flesh unrelentingly, all nails. "I don’t know what —"_

_"Mmmh, I’m sure you don’t." She shakes him, her other hand now in his hair, pulling his head up to face her. She is grinning, and he is so pathetically afraid. "Train connections, hm?"_

_His heart stops. "I didn’t mean — _ah!_"_ _She yanks at his hair sharply, still bent down to face him at his height, but twisting his hair so hard he has to tilt his head back all the way and his eyes begin to water from the pain and the fear._

_"Did research all on your own, did you, Percival? I’m almost impressed." With equal force, she yanks his head forward again, her face inches from his, and that smile is still there, broad and empty. "But you’re not getting away. I have so many more ideas for you."_

"Percy? Percival?"

His hands still around the book as the letters swim into each other briefly, then crystallise into clear vision again. "Yes", Percy hears himself saying even before he’s once again found all of his consciousness. "I’m sorry, yes?"

Vex’ahlia is sitting next to him, looking at him with a careful smile. "We’re goin’ to leave now, or it’ll get much too late", she says. Percy looks around and spots her brother waiting a few steps away. "Are you going to be alright? We can walk home with you, if you want."

And that does shake him out of his stupor. "No", he says instantly, firmly. "Thank you, but I’m quite fine."

Vex’ahlia nods quickly and gets up from the bench. "Well, see you tomorrow, I suppose", she replies.

Percy forgets to reply for a fraction of a second, looking at her. He struggles to put his finger on it, but there is a sense of… vividity about her that wasn’t there before. In a way, it’s unsettling; it makes him want to recoil from her for how foreign it is.

It makes him _wish_, he realises, and that is a dangerous thing.

"Hey, Whitey, still awake there?", Vax’ildan calls from a few feet away.

Percy startles, again. "Yes, sorry —"

"He’s kidding", Vex’ahlia says, sending a scathing look towards her brother. "Hey, if you want…" She hesitates, looks to Vax’ildan, who rolls his eyes with a half-smile and nods. "If you want, you can come talk to us tomorrow at school. Us and — and the others, Pike and Keyleth and — well, the group. If you want."

He opens his mouth, on the edge of politely declining, and closes it again. When Keyleth said the same thing to him after he lost to Vex’ahlia during that maths quiz, he’d been fairly sure that the offer was borne out of poorly concealed pity. "I have to look after Cassandra", he says this time, at something of a loss.

Vex’ahlia shrugs as she stands up. "You can take her along, if you want. But I just wanted to say."

Percy just looks mutely at the two of them as Vex’ahlia gives a little wave and Vax’ildan nods in lieu of a formal goodbye. "See you at school", she says before she turns.

_See you at school_. "Yeah", he echoes. "See you."

He watches them wander off. Vax’ildan says something quiet to his sister, whereupon she shoves him hard enough with her shoulder that he falls to the ground, pealing laughter audible all the while. A second later, Vex’ahlia stretches her hand towards him and pulls him up off the ground. The sight of them makes his heart contract a little, a dull sort of ache; it makes him remember, and he doesn’t know if he wants that.

Most of all, it makes him wish.

What a ridiculous, dangerous thing.


	31. pt. IV: to build a home. chapter 28 - scanlan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With time, Scanlan gets more of an opportunity to silently observe this little group of theirs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i did it omg i diD IT
> 
> i'm so sorry for the delay, i've been writing my bachelor's thesis and also dealing with major creative writer's block. i genuinely wrote three separate half-chapters but i was never happy with them at all. however! i promise that the next chapter will not take as long because now i have INSPIRATION. 
> 
> tiny scanlan is always a fun one to imagine. i hope i did him justice. let me know ur opinion.
> 
> thank you for sticking with me. kudos and comments are always appreciated.

The weeks go on and on and melt into autumn so seamlessley it’s almost unnoticeable. Just like every year, it takes everyone a bit of time before they’re fully adjusted to the rhythm of school, away from the strange freedom of the holidays.

Pike gradually stops her daily visits her grandad’s office to chat and steal a cookie. Scanlan knows that she sticks to the man like glue during the holidays; Wilhand always has something to teach, something to pass on to her, and she soaks it up whether it’s whittling — this year’s summer passion, if he understands correctly — or how to wrap a wrist in bandages so there’s less stress on it. At school, though, Wilhand works, and Pike has to get used to not having his attention at all times.

Grog settles back into the daily strain of school reluctantly, but he manages it eventually. Every afternoon, at least one person from their little group sits with him to help him master his homework. And if he gets short with them, steam rising up in him, Scanlan or Pike are quick to nudge him towards punching a pillow or running around the schoolyard as fast as he can until his head is calmer again.

Keyleth is enigmatic as always. She has good days more than bad days, and she throws herself into that quiet kind of caring that she has about her. The day after Grog winds up in the principal’s office for getting into a fight with another boy from a higher grade who said something snide to Vex, she comes to school with a bright red balloon filled with flour, designed to squeeze as tight as you can. Grog gets quiet when she hands it to him, but everyone is happy to chatter to fill the silence.

And the twins… well.

They all hear the giggles, badly hidden beneath raised hands or not hidden at all. Mostly, they come from older children, and when Scanlan asks, Vax lets him know in a few choice words that these are the twins’ father’s colleagues’ children. Scanlan does not ask any follow-up questions.

The thing is, the comments and the laughter aren’t as loud during break or in the cafeteria, where there is invariably a four-people barrier ready at hand to help the twins block them out. That barrier does not reach French class. All they can do is put up with Vax’ boiling anger and Vex’ bone-crushing anxiety two days of the week, and try to make it better on the other three.

Scanlan tries to hold back judgement. He really does. It isn’t as if he hasn’t been less than kind to another person before. But after a month of comments shouted over the schoolyard, of Vex hiding in their little copse of trees behind the school, of Vax growing strangely pale and quicker to snap than even Grog, the moral high ground is drifting further and further away from him.

And even he has to admit, maybe he cares about the new kids a little. Whatever. Pike smirks at him the first time he throws an arm around Vex’ shoulder to comfort instead of annoy her, and he cuts a grimace in return.

***

"So that’s the biggest rule", Miss Vysoren says loudly as the chalk scritches over the blackboard in quick and tidy strokes, "the biggest rule in maths: you do multiplication and division before addition and subtraction. Otherwise, it’ll mess up your results. Got it? Jarrett, what’s the rule?"

Scanlan yawns and rests his head on his hand. His brain is still caught up in a summary of his book from the previous lesson; there’s no room for information about numbers to stick anymore.

"For homework over the weekend, I want you guys to complete page 26 of your workbooks, so that’ll be more or less depending on what you’ve already done." The classroom groans collectively. "Well, if you didn’t pay attention during silent work earlier, that must pay off somehow, right? You’ve got all the tools you need to get this done in a half hour." The bell interrupts her. Next to Pike, Grog sighs in relief.

"Remember that tomorrow is teachers’ day off", Miss Vysoren calls over the generalised mumbling. "Your parents already know, but I’d prefer to sleep in late knowing that none of my children are waking up panicked that they missed school." A few chuckles arise. "Enjoy the long weekend, guys. Off to break with you…"

They pack up their backpacks and filter out of the classroom into the soft and heavy air of an autumn day that is still clinging on to the remnants of summer. "D’you have plans for teacher’s day yet?", Pike asks cheerily. "Grog and I are gonna go over to Keyleth’s, but we could take a few more people in the car!"

"You think your dad’s gonna be okay with that, Keyleth?", Scanlan asks. His plans currently involve practicing the flute until his lungs hurt, and that’s pretty much it. He could do that at Keyleth’s; plus, her dad tends to provide lemonade.

Keyleth nods. "Told me. I asked for everyone, just in case." Her eyes flick over to the twins.

Vax shrugs half-heartedly. "We’d love to, Kiki, but somehow I doubt Mrs Dubois would be taken to the idea. I mean, I’ll be surprised if she even knows tomorrow’s a day off, so we have to break that piece of news to her…"

Resigned, Vex nods. "She won’t agree to do us a favour right after that."

"Wait, why’s she in charge now?", Grog asks curiously.

"Well, father dearest is on a business trip all week." Vax grimaces. "I’m not complaining. The crone ignores us, at the very least. Not as keen on making sure our French is good and proper."

Scanlan has an idea, then. It’s not a good one. But he keeps it in the back of his mind for now, turns it over carefully while the conversation continues. Grog and Vax, already itching for P.E. to let out their matching restless energy, begin bouncing off each other to try and land little jabs in the other’s stomach region, a game destined to go wrong; but at least this time, it does take more than their half-hour of break time to do so.

Once the bell rings, they trudge off to the gym together, some more enthusiastically than others. Keyleth tends to get wary around P.E. class, since it involves potential bodily contact that she is not necessarily comfortable with on most days. Scanlan recalls a time in first grade, when Keyleth, in all her frustrated red-head glory, screamed her head off at Miss Kima after one such incident. It got better after that, but the girl is still only somewhat at ease.

But she’s in a good mood today, along with the rest of them. She stands next to him as Miss Kima points out two of their classmates to pick their teammates.

"Hey, bet you I can guess who gets picked first", he whispers to her.

She flaps her hand against his side. "Grog, obviously."

"I pick Grog", Wren says eagerly, and Scanlan scoffs. _Too obvious._ Pike and Vax end up in Wren’s team, too, while Zahra, Jarrett, Percy and Keyleth are called to the other side of the gym. Scanlan pretends to be wounded when he gets picked almost last, but he doesn’t really mind.

Finally, there’s just Illya and Vex left standing in between the groups, the former smiling indulgently, the latter biting her lip until it goes white. Aiden scrunches up his nose, considering.

"Alright, Illya", he says finally, shrugging.

Scanlan winces and shifts over to the other boy, folding his arms in front of his chest. "Wrong choice, my friend", he says in a low voice. "You’ve seen her play dodgeball, haven’t you?"

Aidan flinches. "Oh. Oh god, and…"

"And her brother’s on the same team." He grimaces exaggeratedly. "Oof, that’s a pity. Guess you can either listen to stupid gossip _or _win at sports."

Because here’s the thing: Scanlan has heard Aidan whisper and giggle about the twins a few times now. They share both Drama and Spanish class, and _apparently_, according to a very interesting eavesdropping session from a few days ago, Aidan has a sister in sixth grade who is best friends with Thalia Evin, who, yes, Scanlan had stutteringly asked whether she wanted some of his chips last year, and yes, he still goes beet red at the memory, but anyways, everyone knows Thalia Evin is a diplomat’s daughter…

Well, it had not been hard to make the connection to what Aidan had stage-whispered.

Utterly content with himself and grinning broadly, Scanlan saunters away.

The game is a modified version of dodgeball, as far as he can tell, the new element being that a few designated players are allowed to block shots now. He likes it well enough, but what he really enjoys is hiding behind Grog while watching the twins instantly sharp-shoot their way to greatness. Percival and Jarrett do put up a good fight against them, and Scanlan does his part by yelling out distractions at their opponents, but with the added advantage of Grog and Pike on the twins’ team, they do not stand a chance.

They play a second game on different teams before Miss Kima dismisses them. As they filter out of the gym, Scanlan drifts to Vax’ side, lightly elbowing him in the side.

"Hey", he says quietly. "D’you think you can get Vex to do something that’s, like… only allowed in a certain sense?"

Vax frowns. "In what sense?"

"In the sense that it’s not."

He shrugs. "I believe in her, you know. What’s the plan?"

Scanlan lets a wide grin spread on his face. "I have an idea to get you to Keyleth’s tomorrow."


End file.
